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GOD-MAN: 



BY 

A T. TOWNSEND, D.D., 

\* 

PROFESSOR IN THE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY, 
BOSTON UNIVERSITY. 



SEARCH AND MANIFESTATION. 

i 1 /% <n\ 






And who is sufficient for these things ? 

2 Cor. ii. 16. 

If I have said anything unworthy of Thee, or have aspired for 

my own honor, mercifully forgive me. 

Kepler. 



/ BOSTON : 

LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS. 

New York: 

LEE, SHEPARD AND DILLINGHAM. 

1872. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, 

By L. T. TOWNSEND, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 




Stereotyped at the Boston Stereotype* Foundry, 
No. 19 Spring Lane. 



TO THE 

PROFESSORS AND STUDENTS 

OF THE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY, BOSTON UNIVERSITY, 

IN RECOLLECTION OF PLEASANT ASSOCIATIONS, 

AND IN APPRECIATION OF UNIFORM 

KINDNESS, 



i&Jjxa Volume 



IS GRATEFULLY AND RESPECTFULLY 
DEDICATED. 



PREFACE, 



During the fall of 1869, application, unsought and 
undesired, was made to the author to discuss in Music 
Hall, Boston, the problem of Ecce Deus — Ecce Ho- 
mo. Various considerations led to compliance with 
the request. The arguments advanced in support of 
Christ's deity were desired for publication ; consent 
was given, but time asked for review and revision. 
The delay seems, doubtless, unreasonably prolonged. 
But the subject, upon investigation, has been con- 
stantly enlarging its boundaries, and has also been 
found to suggest so many critical and important issues, 
that delay has been unavoidable ; and more than 
once the disparity between the ever-expanding ideal 
and the v/ork actually accomplished has been so start- 
ling, — never more so than when closing the last 
chapter, — that but for the publisher's announcement, 
and a strange, almost fascinating conviction, the pen 

5 



6 PREFACE. 

had long since been laid aside, or otherwise em- 
ployed. 

We hope the apparent presumption of adding anoth- 
er treatise to the many admirable ones upon the sub- 
ject, already before the public, will be pardoned in 
view of another consideration. The theme is so great 
and grand, falling from all lips, engaging all pens, 
and involving questions and problems of philosophy 
and life so varied that whoever writes upon it may be 
pardoned for hoping that his added mite will receive 
perusal before dismissal from at least some of the 
many friends of Jesus ; and thus the faith of a few be 
strengthened and the cause of truth subserved. 

The original divisions of the argument have not 
been modified, except in scope and fulness. The facts 
and reasoning as presented in this volume are classi- 
fied under Search and Manifestion. The Strife and 
Harmony, involving discussions respecting the attitude 
of modern science, philosophy, sceptical criticism, and 
Christianity towards Jesus will constitute the matter 
of a second work, now nearly ready. 

Some of the views advanced will, very likely, be 
condemned as heterodox, or at least as concessions to 
liberalism. We do not think they are ; at all events, 
we believe them, and so submit them, if erroneous, to 
the decision and condemnation of the devout heart — 
that sworn Detective of every form of human error. 



PREFACE. 7 

If we are correct, there is nothing to fear ; for truth 
never asks for silence, and if stated, will take good 
care of itself, though often playing sad havoc with our 
own preconceived and fond notions. 

The quotations may be thought over-copious : to 
those who can examine extensively all the literature 
of the subject, they are so, but not to the masses whom 
the author desires to reach, and who are anxiously in- 
quiring respecting the various topics discussed, though 
they have neither time nor means to make extensive 
personal investigation ; besides, the best part of all 
modern books is their quotations. 

It is possible we should have limited somewhat our 
discussions in the field of Comparative Theology, 
had we anticipated the publication of several foreign 
works upon this subject, together with Dr. Clarke's 
& Ten Great Religions " and Professor Moffat's " Com- 
parative History of Religions " in our own country, 
which have been issued since our investigations were 
commenced. 

The labor attending the following pages, not light, 
though it may appear thus to the reader, and though 
prosecuted under the pressure of other incessant occu- 
pations, in pulpit and lecture-room, has been attended, 
on the whole, with that keenness of pleasure which 
the Believer always experiences when engaged about 
his Master's business. 



8 PREFACE. 

The chief regret, so overshadowing that it may be 
regarded the only one felt as the book goes from the 
press, is, that it so imperfectly and unworthily repre- 
sents the Divine One. 

The sentiment touchingly expressed by Justin Martyr 
finds in us the deepest response : "I would fain, O 
Divine Son of Mary, feeble as I am, have said some- 
thing great of Thee." 



CONTENTS. 



I. SEARCH. 

PAGE 

Introductory , 15 

COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY 19 

I. The Brahmin. 21 

II. The Buddhist 30 

III. The Greek and Roman. 41 

IV. The Israelite and Ishmaelite 59 

V. The Aboriginal American. 75 

ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY 83 

I. God-Idea. . 85 

II. Mediator 94 

III. Incarnation 108 

IV. Sacrifice 112 

V. Authority of Essential Theology 121 

VI. Origin and Significance of Essential Theol- 
ogy 139 

II. MANIFESTATION. 

Introductory 161 

I. NEW ERA 162 

II. RECORDS 175 

III. HUMANITY OF JESUS; Facts and Opinions. 190 

9 



IO CONTENTS. 

IV. DIVINITY OF JESUS 197 

I. Recorded Facts 197 

II. Apostolic Opinions 222 

III. Contemporaneous Public Opinion 241 

IV. Personal Testimony. . 252 

V. Early Christian Opinion 265 

VI. Modern Opinions and Estimates 288 

VII. Christian Consciousness 322 

VIII. Christianity 355 

EPILOGUE 389 



APPENDICES. 

A. Monotheism, the Background of Greek and Ro- 

man Polytheism t . 411 

B. Oriental Religions originally from the same Soil. 411 

C. Mind of Jesus not influenced by Philo's Teachings, 412 

D. Devotions of the Mohammedans 413 

E. Prescott's Account of Mexican Sacrifices 413 

F. Devotions of Chinese, Brahmins, and Buddhists. . 415 

G. Current Opinions authoritative ; View of Spencer. 416 
H. Condition of Rome at the Advent of Christianity. 418 

I. Translation of Virgil's Eclogue 419 

J. Incidental Evidences of Gospel Credibility. . . . 421' 

K. The remarkable Character of Christ's Words. . . 425 

L. Christ a professed Miracle-worker 427 

M. Interview between Jesus and his Disciples. .... 42S 

N. Belief of the Disciples in the Deity of Jesus. . . . 440 

O. Personal Appearance of Jesus ; Letter of Lentulus. 430 

P. Early Radicals 432 

G^ Early Dissenters. 434 

R. The Terms " Christian" and " Christianity." . . . 436 

S. Differences of Expression not Differences in Faith. 439 

T. Testimony as to the early Spread of Christianity. . 440 

U. General Progress of Christianity 441 

V. Christianity and other Religions; Differences. . . 443 



THE SEARCH 



(ii) 



Clouds and darkness are round about him. Psalms xcvii. 2. 

Canst thou by searching find out God? Job xi. 7. 

No facts to me are sacred; none are profane; I simply 
experiment, an endless seeker, with no past at my back. 

Emerson. 
Would this weary life were spent, 
Would this fruitless search were o'er, 
And rather than such visions, — blessed 
The gloomiest depth of nothingness. Sterling. 

But what am I? 

An infant in the night; 

An infant crying for the light, 

And with no language but a cry. Tennyson. 

Did the Almighty, holding in his right hand Truths and 
in his left Search after Truth, deign to proffer me the one, 
I should request Search after Truth, Lessing. 

Happiness consists in a faculty having its proper object. 

Butler. 

Could I find a path to follow, 

Ah, how glad I were, and blessed ! Schiller. 

The ancients were as the eagle intently gazing on what 
it wants strength to reach. Mackay. 

By continually seeking to know, and being continually 
thrown back with a deepened conviction of the impossibility 
of knowing, we may keep alive the consciousness, that it is 
alike our highest wisdom and our highest duty to regard that 
through which all things exist as, The Unknowable. 

Though the Absolute cannot in any manner or degree be 

12 



known, in the strict sense of knowing, jet we find that its 
positive existence is a necessary datum of consciousness; that 
so long as consciousness continues, we cannot for an instant 
rid it of this datum ; and.that thus the belief which this datum 
constitutes has a higher warrant than any other whatever. 

We too often forget that not only is there " a soul of good- 
ness in things evil," but very generally, also, a soul of truth in 
things erroneous. Herbert Spencer. 

Wherefore, from hence it plainly appears, that these Platon- 
ic and Egyptian pagans, who thus reduced their multiplici- 
ty of gods to the divine ideas, did not therefore make them to 
be so many minds or spirits, really distinct from the supreme 
God (though dependent on him too), but indeed only so 
many partial considerations of one God, as being all things, 
that is, containing within himself the causes of all things. 
And accordingly we find that the Egyptian theologers called 
their religious animals symbols of the eternal ideas ; so did 
they also call them symbols of God. 

Celsus applauds the Egyptian theologers talking so mag- 
nificently and mysteriously of those brute animals wor- 
shipped by them, and affirming them to be certain symbols 
of God. 

But lastly, as God was supposed by these pagans not only 
to pervade all things, and to fill all things, but also he, being 
the cause of all things, to be himself in a manner all things, 
so was he called also by the name of everything, or every- 
thing called by his name; that is, the several things of na- 
ture and parts of the world were themselves verbally deified 
by these pagans, and called gods and goddesses. Not that 
they really accounted them such in themselves, but that they 
thought fit in this manner to acknowledge God in them, as 
the author of them all. Cudworth. 

All mythologies were once philosophies. Sauerteig. 

13 



Such thoughts, the wreck of Paradise, 

Through many a dreary age, 
Upbore whate'er of good or wise 

Yet lived in bard or sage. Keble. 

Our duty is, neither to ridicule the affairs of men, nor to 
deplore, but simply to understand them. Spinoza. 

Making their lives a prayer, 

The whole round earth is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 

Browning. 

All errors of this kind (naturalisms) — and in the present 
day we are in constant and grievous danger of falling into 
them — arise from the originally mistaken idea that man can, 
" by searching find out God — find out the Almighty to per- 
fection; " that is to say, by help of courses of reasoning and 
accumulations of science, apprehend the nature of the Deity 
in a more exalted and more accurate manner than in a state 
of comparative ignorance ; whereas it is clearly necessary, 
from the beginning to the end of time, that God's way of 
revealing himself to his creatures should be a simple way, 
which all those creatures may understand. 

This conception of God, which is the child's, is evidently 
the only one which can be universal, and therefore the only 
one which yiw us can be true. The moment that, in our pride 
of heart, we refuse to accept the condescension of the Al- 
mighty, and desire him, instead of stooping to hold our 
hands, to rise up before us into his glory, — we hoping that 
by standing in a grain of dust or two of human knowledge 
higher than our fellows, we may behold the Creator as he 
rises, — God takes us at our word ; he rises into his own in- 
visible and inconceivable majesty; he goes forth upon the 
ways which are not our ways, and retires into the thoughts 
which are not our thoughts ; and we are left alone. And 
presently we say in our vain hearts, " There is no God." 

Ruskin. 

H 



THE SEARCH 



INTRODUCTORY. 

JEAN PAUL RICHTER gives the following ac- 
count of the birth of his self-consciousness : — 

" Never shall I forget the phenomenon in myself, 
never till now recited, when I stood by the birth of 
my own self-consciousness, the place and time of which 
are distinct in my memory. On a certain forenoon, I 
stood, a very young child, within the house-door, and 
was looking out towards the wood-pile, when, in an 
instant, the inner revelation, 4 Z am /,' like lightning 
from heaven, flashed and stood brightly before me ; 
in that moment had I seen myself as c I ' for the 
first time and forever." 

All mental action before this experience had doubt- 
less been little other than mere animal sensation, per- 
ception, and instinct. This dawning consciousness 
of one's self, be the time and place remembered or 
forgotten, is the first mental act that rises above mere 
brute thought. The germ of something higher has 
previously been in the mind, but no birth. It is this 
consciousness which thenceforth announces that the 
thinker is no longer a brute, but a man. 

15 



1 6 GOD-MAN. 

Next, and while this child-man is still standing in 
the " house-door," he rubs his eyes, looks about, is im- 
pressed by the immense handicraft surrounding him 
and thence an additional revelation flashes suddenly 
and stands brightly before him, and the grand thought 
of One over and above all, likewise for the first time 
and forever, takes possession of the mind.* 

This experience, in one form or another, is univer- 
sal. A glance over the field of history confirms the 
position, and everywhere discovers the presence of the 
God-idea. Its existence, as we have just seen, de- 
pends upon no process of reasoning, but is natural, 
and is just as authoritative in the mind of man before 
Paley touches it, as after he leaves it. Consciousness 
of self and a conviction of God's existence hold such 
intimate relations one to the other that the one must, 
it would seem, instantly follow the other. The soul 
is an expression of God, and the moment the expres- 
sion recognizes itself it recognizes its author. The 
rock and the horse do not recognize God, because 
they do not recognize themselves. This consciousness 
of self and this attendant conception of God are be- 
tween man and God an exchange of glances.f The 

* We call attention to Emerson's expression embodying 
this thought, notwithstanding his assertion that the soul and 
God are identical : — 

"I clap raj hands in infantine joy and amazement, before 
the first opening to me of this august magnificence, old with 
the lore and homage of innumerable ages." 

t Schleiermacher and after him Theodore Parker were not 
far from the truth in basing the first principles of essential 
religion upon, first, the feeling of dependence, and, second, 
a something to depend upon. 



THE SEARCH. 1 7 

thinker in this step is no longer a man-being, but a reli- 
gious being. 

But more than this : the instant these two products, 
self and God, are presented to the mind, that instant, 
from the natural constitution of things, will result 
an effort to bring and to bind them both together, — 
the man and the God, — that they may be not one 
and the same, but one, though different. This is the 
foundation of all different religions. How shall this 
be done becomes the abiding question. By whom, 
or by what, engages all thought. Every phase of 
religious belief radiates from and returns to this cen- 
tre, and from it commences, in theory and in fact, the 
human search. 

The efforts of men in this direction, it is true, have 
often seemed like a game of " hide and seek," the 
buffed man meeting many an obstacle, catching many 
a fall, and shedding many a tear ; but none the less is 
he resolved never to take " no " for an answer. 

" Feeling after if haply they may find " of the apos- 
tle becomes, in the connection, both suggestive and im- 
pressive. In it is embodied the religious history of 
the world. It also, in the present order of things, rep- 
resents, not only man's request for an introduction to 
the Deity, but man's effort at restoration. Continued 
in faith, it will doubtless end in " finding " somewhat ! 
It will at last be " accounted for righteousness." Yet 
it always has had, and probably always will have, its 
natural limitations. How can it be otherwise, since 
" the Infinite, from whatever side we view it, appears 
encompassed with contradictions," * and " is not a rel- 
ative, but an absolute mystery," j* and since the search, 

* Mansel. t Spencer. 



1 8 GOD-MAN. 

in fact, and in history, as well as in scriptural repre- 
sentation, is the figure of man standing, or cautiously 
moving with outstretched hands, but bandaged eyes ? 
Even were present difficulties removed, there will 
be doubtless other natural horizons, still farther on- 
ward, ever appearing, and soon presenting fresh diffi- 
culties until man's consciousness becomes identical 
with God's ; can that ever be ? 

But we may note another feature in the develop- 
ment of man's religious ideas. So far as the race is 
affected by the sense of guilt, the idea of mediation 
has assumed the form of sacrifice. " I consider sac- 
rifice," remarks Madame de Stael, correctly, "the basis 
of all religion." In some instances it is vicarious, in 
others it is personal. Man has often been the victim 
offered, and in some instances it has been thought that 
a Divine Man, an Incarnate Divine Man, is necessary 
to reveal the hidden God, and unite humanity to Him. 

Beginning wdth some of the older religions as repre- 
sentative, it is interesting to trace from primative truths, 
through comparative theology, the development of 
these various religious ideas. 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 



*9 



THE BRAHMIN 



THE original religion of the land of the seven 
rivers, which stretches from the Indus to the 
Hesidrus, came from Bactria.* Among the moun- 
taineer and nomadic tribes which inhabited this an- 
cient kingdom of Asia there existed, long before their 
conquest by Cyrus, a system of religion which, with 
subsequent modifications, has been embraced by a 
larger number of mankind than any other. Its an- 
tiquity is so great, and facts respecting it so meagre, 
that it cannot be fathomed with anything like precis- 
ion. Its truths appear to have been handed down by 
oral tradition, to have been enthroned to some extent 
in the songs and hymns of the people, exemplified, 
doubtless, in the rustic and religious life of the people, 
and to have furnished more or less of that material 
which has entered into the religions of all the Aryan 
nations — the Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, Romans, 
Celts, Slaves, and Teutons. 

The more recent investigations in the sciences of 

* Modern Bokhara. 

21 



22 GOD-MAN. 

comparative religions and philology decide that the 
worship of this people was originally simple, though 
sacrificial ; the religious type was a pure monotheism, 
resembling closely the worship of Israel in Palestine. 
Data of a character beyond question show that the 
later and modified religion consisted in the worship 
of the divine in nature. The oldest divinity, Deva, 
the " all-embracing heavens," corresponds precisely 
with Canof>us of the Greeks. 

The other gods were personified powers of nature. 
Agni, the god of fire, played a most important part. 
He was the mediator, the one who presented all 
prayers offered by mortals to Deva, and burned their 
sacrifices. 

During these early stages of the Hindoo religion, 
which extended, according to Dr. Haug, from 2000 
to 1200 B. C, there appear to have been no priestly 
orders. It was the Hindoo patriarchal age in w r hich 
the head of the family was priest, or, without such a 
head, every man was his own priest. To see God, 
and not mere man, the infinite, and not the finite, was 
the foundation of the old Hindoo effort and faith. Sub- 
sequently the nations of India adopted a more orderly 
and social constitution, abandoned. their nomadic and 
warlike life, collected their ancient sacred writings, 
chiefly songs and hymns, into an authorized canon, 
and guarded them with jealousy almost equal to that 
of the Jewish Rabbins ; they also instituted the priestly 
class, whose office was to represent the condition and 
wants of the people before the deity. The chief func- 
tion of the priesthood was prayer — brahma; hence 
Brahmins, i. e., praying. 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 23 

After this date the Hindoos possessed greater formal 
piety, but were more grossly immoral. The old Veda 
divinities were in time subordinated entirely to Brah- 
ma, and even the earlier phases of Indian theology 
resolved themselves into the doctrine of the abstract 
unity — a kind of impersonal all. 

The modern Hindoo, in moments of religious ex- 
citement, declares that he believes in three hundred 
and thirty million gods. Here would seem to be the 
extreme of polytheism. Yet, to whatever natural 
object he looks, and to whatever form of intelligence 
he offers his devotions, he is at every step and in every 
effort seeking after the negative One — the eternal 
Check.* The Brahmin, however, so far as he is not 
an ignorant and brutish idolater, asks different crea- 
tures and supplicates different objects with the sole 
purpose that they may inform him where he can find 
the Unseen ; it is his way of erecting an altar to the 
Unknow T n God. His life, in fine, is a continued effort 
to approach, through some intervening something ele- 
vated into a god, to the presence of Brahm, who is 
the One Infinite Illumination, the Absolute and Self- 
Existent, the Mentor, and the All, who lies upon 
" eternity and the stars." It is, we think, usually con- 
ceded at the present time that not only was the origi- 
nal Bactrian, but the derived Vedic and the subsequent 
Brahmin idea were also strictly monotheistic. " There 
can be no doubt," says Max Muller, " that the fun- 

* This semi-negative attitude respecting the deity is repre- 
sented by the modern Shakers as the " obstruction." Thus 
with Socrates' genius, which did not advise him how to act, 
but dissuaded him from evil. 



24 GOD-MAN. 

damental doctrine of the Vedas is monotheism." 
Though all things may be involved in the Brah- 
min's general conception of deity, yet his monothe- 
ism clearly appears in the formation of his creed — 
" Spirit alone is this All." 

" To know that God is, and that all is God, this is 
the substance of the Vedas," say the Vedas. " It is 
found in the Vedas that none but the Supreme Being 
is to be worshipped, nothing excepting him should be 
adored by a wise man." The Vedas often repeat the 
text, " There is in truth but one deity, the Supreme 
Spirit ; " and often repeat the injunction, " Adore 
God alone, know God alone, give up all other dis- 
course." Its confession of faith, as far as it goes, 
could safely be incorporated into our own, u There is 
one living and true God, everlasting, without parts or 
passions ; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness ; 
the maker and preserver of all things. He is one and 
beyond description, whose glory is so great there can 
be no image of him." It would seem then that the 
multitude of invented deities in India is only an effort 
at mediation, and a search after mediators. 

The more definite steps in this religious develop- 
ment are confirmatory. 

Brahm, the One Supreme, was thought by Brah- 
mins to be too much like a " consuming fire," too 
awful and too holy to be approached by mortals di- 
rectly ; there was sought, in consequence, an interven- 
ing one. Indeed, they built no temples and offered no 
prayers directly to Brahm. In one of the early Vedas, 
Brahm is introduced as seeking an image of himself, 
and finding it in Brahma. The relations then become 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 25 

Brahm, the source of light, and Brahma, the light 
which flows from the source of light — the " Light of 
Light," as with the church Fathers; a "child spring- 
ing from his father," as among the ancient Greeks. 
And as the child Zeus supplanted his father in Gre- 
cian mythology, so Brahm gave place to Brahma, 
who was either made identical with Brahm, or became 
for a time the sole object of Hindoo worship. 

But even this reflection of the Great and Ineffable 
through Brahma was also at length thought by the 
Hindoo to be too awful for most men to endure, though 
not for all ; hence the caste of India. 

This resulted in a divine call. It was extended at 
first to some favored few : those who were thus called 
were made priests of Brahma, who thenceforth found 
his one adequate image in man — the priest. Hindoo 
image worship is only another form of manifestation 
and mediation. " We do not believe these statues to 
be Brahma, or Brahm," said a Brahmin to M. Barnier, 
" but only their images and representatives, and we 
only give them honor on account of the beings they 
represent." * 

* The theory of this Brahmin rested upon very ancient 
authority. Professor Wilson, in giving an account of the 
Vedic hymns, remarks, "It seems very doubtful if at the 
time of their composition idolatry was practised in India : 
images of the deified elements are even now unworshipped, 
and. except images of the sun, I am not aware that they are 
ever made. The personification of the divine attributes of 
creation, preservation, and regeneration — Brahma, Vishnu, 
and Siva — originate, no doubt, with the Vedas, but they are 
rarely named; they are blended with the elementary deities, 
they enjoy no pre-eminence, nor are they objects of special 



26 GOD-MAN. 

The Hindoo mythology contains two other charac- 
ters which are of interest to us — Crishna Govinda, 
u the beautiful hero/' who is the messenger of peace, 
and who, under human form, never ceases to be a 
" God-Being," — and Vishnu, who likewise combines 
two characters, " mortal and immortal," " being and 
7Z0;2-being," " motion and rest." This Vishnu de= 
scended to the earth for the purpose of redeeming 
man. He is now the preserving power. He is the har- 
binger. He is a God assuming human flesh through 
an incarnation. He is to come again and judge the 
earth. As might be expected, Vishnu worship came 
in time to take the place of the original Brahma 
worship. Thus the work of supplanting goes on. 
Brahma supplants Brahm, Vishnu Brahma, and the 
different incarnations of Vishnu supplant one another 
in the continued search after One who can satisfy. 

The Hindoo also discovered symbols of terror in 
the world, groanings in nature, fire, earthquakes, and 
deaths. He reasoned that they must have a cause, but 
the cause could not be in Brahma or Vishnu ; there- 
fore Siva, the Destroyer, was introduced into their 
creed. 

Again, restoration and resurrection are in the world ; 

adoration. There is no reason from the invocations ad- 
dressed to them in common with the air, water, the seasons, 
the plants, to suppose that they were ever worshipped under 
visible types. Ministration to idols in temples is held by 
ancient authorities infamous. Manu repeatedly classes the 
priests of a temple with persons unfit to be admitted to pri- 
vate sacrifices, or to be associated with on any occasion. 
It is almost certain, therefore, that the practice of worship- 
ping idols in temples was not the religion of the Vedas." 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 2j 

life springs from death, and pure atmospheres have 
their birth in tempests. u Ail the rivers run into the 
sea, yet the sea is not full ; unto the place whence 
the rivers come, thither they return again." " Every 
thunder-storm, each tornado, is a cry for quiescence." 
From strife comes symmetry. All these phenomena 
necessitate, and in the Hindoo creed originate, the 
God Rajah. 

From this point there is but a step to the principle 
of sacrifice. Brahminism was, from the outset, a blood- 
sacrificial religion. The Vedic hymns and prayers, 
as far as brought to our notice by the translators, 
appear, for the most part, to have been composed 
for sacrificial occasions. Very likely the hills of Bac- 
tria, not long after the deluge, were smoking with the 
choicest lambs and kine of the flock ; and so the cus- 
tom was handed on ; a custom heroic and religious. 

This idea of sacrifice lies, as a matter of fact, at the 
foundation of individual life in India. We read in 
the sacred books that u he who lives in the fire of the 
sacrifice is the great mediator between God and man." 
The individual must be completely lost in the divine 
essence, and become identical with it. The Hindoo 
Institutes point out two paths leading to the state of 
perfection — religious sacrifice and religious contem- 
plation. Brahma sacrificed himself by descending to 
the earth. The Sanscrit word for u sacrifice " means 
" union with God." Brahma also sacrificed his own 
son, or emanation, for human good. Indeed, this re- 
fined pantheism of India pushed the idea of sacrifice, 
involving at once the highest and lowest orders, to its 
utmost verge. It produced both the haughtiest indi- 



28 GOD-MAN- 

vidual asceticism and the conviction of Absolute Being 
to which all individual existence in theory, and, if 
need be, in fact, must be sacrificed. To enforce this 
idea there are occasions when their temples are made 
to run with blood, their enclosed grounds are clotted 
with blood, their garments bespotted with blood, and 
the whole air filled with blood. 

It may be safely said that the entire philosophy 
underlying the development of Brahminism, its spirit 
of caste and its different divine manifestations, is an 
elaborate, scholarly, and persevering effort to explain 
the various phenomena of nature, and is also a restless 
search after a living and incarnate intelligence to com- 
municate with man, and to disclose to him the other- 
wise unknowable. Its success has been truly grand. 

There is no mistaking the underlying principles 
upon which it rests, and which easily account for its 
success. We do not say that it borrowed from Egypt 
or Palestine; but it borrowed from — humanity per- 
haps. 

Its deep reverence for the divine, for illustration, is 
fundamental. The profanity of other nations sounds 
strangely enough to the Hindoo ear. Of the many 
dialects of India, not one of them contains language 
by which the commandment, " Thou shalt not take the 
name of the Lord thy God in vain," can be broken.* 

* The Rev. Dr. Scudder, the celebrated missionary to 
India, on his return passage, while standing on the deck 
of the steamer with his son, heard a gentleman employ pro- 
fane language. "My friend," said the doctor, "this boy, 
my son, was born and brought up in a heathen country; but 
in all his life he never heard a man blaspheme his Maker 
until now." 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 29 

Nor is the Divine Call of India peculiar to that 
country ; it pervades all history. The priesthood of 
every nation, an Abraham and John the Baptist wher- 
ever found, and Jesus of Nazareth, show the universal 
demand for one set apart and consecrated for the 
especial services of the Unseen. 

The twice-born of the Brahmins is likewise essen- 
tial, and is not in form unlike the second birth of the 
Christian faith. Again, the creating Brahma, who is 
inseparable from the Absolute Thought, and who cor- 
responds with the Egyptian Intelligence, and the Wis- 
dom of the Book of Proverbs,* is the Brahmin's antici- 
pation of the Word-Reason in the Gospel of John. 

The doctrine of a divine Incarnation associated with 
a sacrifice which is felt by the Hindoo to be the agency 
for alleviating and removing the evils of the world, is 
likewise prophetic of the apostle Paul's statement that 
" Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many;" 
and these different creeds bear upon their clasped 
hands a truth not arbitrarily assumed, but which is 
common to human nature. And any system of reli- 
gion or philosophy which does not recognize, in one 
form or another, these root-principles, cannot touch 
human hearts, and must, sooner or later, perish from 
sheer lack of human support and human sympathy. 
Have not these subtle dreamers of India dreamed 
something besides dreams? 

"The primal truth 
Glimmers through many a superstitious form 
That fills the soul with unavailing ruth." 

* Proverbs x. 22-32. 



II. 

THE BUDDHIST. 



BUDDHISM is one of the sublimest religious phe- 
nomena that has visited this world. It is not a 
primitive religion, but was originally a feature of Brah- 
minism ; it is safe to remark that the primitive types of 
all known religions have only been approximately ascer- 
tained. Buddha was early worshipped by the Brah- 
mins as one of the incarnations or manifestions of 
Vishnu. He was looked upon, however, as a propa- 
gator of heresies, and the originator of all forms of 
scepticism. This designation, Buddha, was very likely 
given to the reformer Sakya-muni, at first, by way of 
reproach, who, by a most remarkable life, raised it 
above obloquy, making it as distinctive and honorable 
as Brahm or any other descriptive term could have 
been.* 

The modern phases of Buddhism originated in 
Northern India, from five hundred to a thousand 
years B. C, and were sincere and manly efforts to 
restore certain early types of Brahminism, and free 

* Compare the once opprobrious terms " Christian," 
"Methodist," and the like. 30 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 3 1 

the people from a galling yoke of hierarchy and dogma. 
It was a dissent of human nature and philanthropy 
against the obnoxious Hindoo system of religious caste. 

A few leading steps in the controversy between 
Brahminism and Buddhism are the following : Brahm, 
of Brahminism, is a passive intelligence, w T ith which 
it was contended that the sacerdotal orders only, may 
through Brahma ultimately become purely identical. 

The corruptions of the priesthood, as with the Ro- 
man clergy before the Reformation, after a while 
brought a stigma upon this dogma. The more intel- 
ligent among the people felt they were as good, and 
if as good, then as worthy of divine honors, as their 
priests. This led them to demand for a God, a being 
less abstract and more active ; one who can enter into 
fellowship, not with one class, the priests merely, but 
with all classes alike. 

These bold Protestants of their time and country, like 
Luther and the Reformers of the fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries, called upon their countrymen not to trust the 
sacerdotal classes, not to worship them, or Brahm 
through them, but to become their own priests, and 
worship, " not on this mountain " or that, but every- 
where and directly the universal Intelligence. These 
reformatory movements led to controversy, and were 
doubtless inaugurated under severe persecution. The 
bloody Spanish Inquisition may have been anticipated. 

As has always been*the case with similar reforms, it 
was a time, too, of religious break-up, attended with 
many and diverse " departures." The infidel philoso- 
phies of India probably took their rise in this period. 
Humanitarian, rationalistic, naturalistic, and materialis- 



32 GOD-MAN. 

tic parties appeared, contesting the pre-eminence of their 
several claims to universal respect. India must have 
had its Hobbes, its Voltaire, and possibly its Frederick 
the Great. It is with not a little interest we find the 
modern u Development " theory started at this time, or 
near it, in the formula, " The rising of the world is a 
natural cause." 

But too many interests supported Brahminism to 
allow it to be overthrown by infidelities worse than 
itself, or supplanted by a revolution better than itself, 
but which was not without its grand defects. The seed 
of scepticism remained, however, producing more or 
less fruit ever after. 

Buddhism soon yielded, and her noble sages became 
pilgrims, and fled to other countries. The leading 
spirit in this reformatory movement was Siddharta, of 
the family of the Sakya. He has borne the names of 
Sakya-muni, Sramana, Gautama, and Buddha. 

He told the people that purity, abstinence, patience, 
brotherly love, and repentance were better than sacri- 
fice. He, like Jesus, became the poor man's preacher 
and friend, employed the language of the common 
people, and chose his followers out of all classes, even 
from among the poorest women. 

The subsequent success of Buddhism is well nigh in- 
credible. It spread with amazing rapidity, and has held 
its ascendency with unparalleled vigor. It is to-day the 
faith of Thibet, Siam, of the Burmese Empire, Cochin 
China, Japan, Ceylon, and is the popular, though not 
the state religion of China. The later Yoga system 
of Brahmin asceticism was formed by the introduction 
of Buddhistic elements, and to Buddhism is almost 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 33 

entirely indebted for its success. Buddhism is there- 
fore, in numbers, the most extensively prevailing reli- 
gion that has ever existed in this world. It has not 
less than three hundred million disciples. It holds 
under its sway one third of the globe, and perhaps it 
might be worse held. 

There are those who look upon this great religious 
movement as of no account. To say that it is not 
worthy of a moment's attention is easy enough, but 
argues a void in the speaker. Ideas which have ex- 
ercised sway over such multitudes must, from the 
nature of the case, have foundation in fact and truth. 
Upon their surface there may be unseemly " parasite 
growths," but underneath there are vitality and reality. 
Newman is not far from correct in saying that " the 
majority is always true-hearted." " What every man 
says must be true " contains truth. It is a late day 
for Christianity to fall into a jealous fit, for fear that 
she has something to lose from paying respect to the 
thoughts of so many men. There is truth in Buddh- 
ism, "an inward perennial truth," or there is truth 
nowhere. These fore-thoughts of Buddhisits may be as 
good and the same as our after-thoughts. Sakya-mu- 
ni peered for a time into the very heart and depths of 
divine things. His religious system is the " enor- 
mous shadow" of what he saw. His apprehensions 
may have anticipated and foreshadowed the similar 
apprehensions of all believers in all ages. He looked 
and saw for others. u What he says, all men were 
not far from saying — were longing to say. The 
Thoughts of all start lip, as from painful enchanted 
sleep, round his Thought, answering to it, Yes, even 
3 



34 GOD-MAN. 

so ! Joyfully to men as the dawning of day from night, 
is it not, indeed, the awakening for them from no 
being into being, from death into life ? " * from a night 
of nightmare into the tranquil smile of spring morn- 
ing? The "perplexing jungle of Paganism" springs 
from a grand tap-root, nourished by the soul's life and 
thought. Its root is embedded in human nature; its 
leaves can but exhale something of truth. All admit 
that Christianity is the highest form of religious truth 
and thought. Buddhism approaches and makes obei- 
sance : why scoff at it? Christians can afford to be 
something near as charitable as the Buddhist of Cey- 
lon w r ho surprised a missionary by saying, " I respect 
Christianity because I regard it as a help to Buddhism." 

Recall some of its great lessons to the race. It taught 
that not merely the priest, but the vilest person of the 
vilest race, even if a woman,j may become one with 
Buddha. The word Buddha means pure intelligence — - 
the Brahm of Hindooism. Buddha and Brahm are 
of cognate, if not of the same signification. 

No thoughts known to the world could be, there- 
fore, more inspiring to Brahmin or Buddhist, than 
identity with this divine intelligence of Brahm and 
Buddha. The cry in fact to all nations w T as, " Ho, 
every one that thirsteth," " without money," " with- 
out price," and " without priest." Thirsty humanity 
lifted its drooping eyes and exclaimed, " I would, and 
I will." Buddhism also maintains the highest admi- 
ration for intelligence. The low estimate placed upon 

* Carlyle. 

t It is now universally admitted that women are better 
treated by Buddhism than by any other Oriental religion. 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 35 

human life by the Brahmin, the Buddhist could not 
brook. 

Intelligence, wherever found, to him is sacred. A 
drop of human blood must not be spilt. The laws of 
Gautama rigidly forbid the killing of any animal, from 
the minutest insect even, up to man. Brutes are felt by 
the Buddhist to have intelligence. They even must 
not be offered in sacrifice. Their half-human faculites 
and affections are thought to be other forms of Buddha. 
Buddhism was, therefore, consistent and emphatic in 
saying to the world, " I will defend your life, for it is 
grand and sacred. " " You need spill no more blood." 
" Hereafter crown your altars, instead, with fruit and 
flowers." Affrighted humanity fleeing from the sacri- 
ficial knife, and crushed under the footfall of tyrants 
and priests, heard the message, and said, "I will — 
defend me." 

Buddhism also advocated not only the sacredness 
but the infinite capacity, nay, the infinite actuality, of 
the human intellect. " The one infallible diagnostic 
of Buddhism is a belief in the infinite capacity of the 
human intellect." * Emerson, speaking of " the infi- 
nite enlargement of the heart, with a power of growth 
to a new infinite on every side," and of the soul of man 
as " an immensity not possessed, and that cannot be 
possessed," but reiterates sentiments with which Buddh- 
ism abounds. 

It also taught that the Pure Intelligence, the Illimit- 
able One, may be embodied in an infant. It affirmed 
that men are not brutes, but the true high priests of the 

* Hodgson. 



36 GOD-MAN. 

universe, nay, even gods. It anticipated in the same 
spirit the claim of Empedocles, " I am God," in- 
dorsed by our New England philosopher. " The seer 
and the spectacle, the subject and object, are one." * It 
anticipated the Spirit of Revelation, but with different 
import. " I have said. Ye are gods, and all of you 
are the children of the Most High." f It told the moth- 
er that her child need not, and must not, be plunged 
into the Ganges, but be reared ; for in the image of 
God had it been created, and " of such is the kingdom 
of heaven." No wonder that these declarations were 
hailed as messages from heaven, and that whole tribes 
and whole nations exclaimed, " We too are Buddh- 
ists." And- who is not, in these respects, a Buddhist? 

But again, to the Buddhist, belief in God is the most 
constant and the most awful of all thoughts ; and his re- 
lation to Him started strange and deep questions. Ex- 
planations were demanded ; thence other religious posi- 
tions were taken. The Buddhist saw, for instance, that 
men are degraded ; hence Buddha is represented as 
descending to earth, in order to raise men into a high- 
er and purer life. The transcendental school holds 
that this Buddha was not a real personage, but the 
imaginary or spiritual character of a perfectly spotless 
being, God's representative, an example and a Saviour. 

Though Buddhism started out as a protest against 
the idea of any kind of intervention or formal media- 
tion between God and man, and likewise against the 
idea of sacrifice as an element of reconciliation, still, 
through a philosophical necessity, both these ideas 

* Emerson. f Psalm lxxxii. 6. 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 37 

gradually fastened themselves upon the system, though 
not in old and repulsive forms, yet in essential forms. 
Buddhism in these, as also in certain other matters, 
has, like Roman Catholicism, been, beyond question, a 
flexible religion, and upon this, in a measure, has 
depended its success. 

Notice further developments : There is pure intelli- 
gence, and there is matter, said the Buddhist, but these 
positions inevitably lead to a third.* There is a medi- 
ating influence or personage who occupies the inter- 
vening territory, and this is Sanga. The Buddhist's 
idea of the God-man appears also in those ancient 
idols which represent God's illimitable greatness in 
colossal human forms. The solemn idea of sacrifice, 
strange and contradictory as it may seem, also found 
an important place in the Buddhist faith. It is really 
the essential foundation of its view of human and di- 
vine relations. The Buddhist's deity, not the priest, 
is to destroy man and perfect him, and perfect by de- 
stroying, and make perfect by absorption. The sacri- 
ficial idea is thus retained, but the prerogative of it is 
left, not with the caste^ but with God. The Sankhya 
Cajhila state that " sacrifice is the best of all temporal 
means of elevation ; but to arrive at the possession 
of the prerogatives of the wise, %visdom itself must be 
sought." The lofty idea here embodied is, that " tem- 
poral means," like the Jewish economy, must give 
place to something higher ; yet these temporal means 
must not be discarded. The purer Buddhist souls 

* "The conception of religion presupposes, (a) God as 
object; (£) man as subject; (c) the mutual relation existing 
between them." — Professor J. H. Scholten. 



38 GOD-MAN. 

seemed to half apprehend that wonderful economy 
which embraces all others, and which does not abolish 
the idea of sacrifice, but sees that Divine Reason has 
somehow been offered, " once for all," and that there 
is no longer needed a sacrifice of blood for sin. In- 
deed, the more we examine the Christian side of Buddh- 
ism, the more it seems to be crowded with points of 
light ; though its dark side leaves its followers in deepest 
ignorance and superstition. Notice additional aspects. 

The Buddhist believes, for instance, that it is the priv- 
ilege of divine men to contemplate divinity in its purity. 
It is likewise the teaching of Christianity that good men 
may know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom 
he has sent. # 

This privilege, says the Buddhist, is obtained by 
sanctification. And thus Jesus prays the Father to 
sanctify his disciples through divine truth. f 

Buddhism calls good men Buddhas ; Christianity 
calls them " sons of God." Buddhism affirms and re- 
affirms that there must be some one person, and he a 
human person, in whom " perfect wisdom " resides. 
He may be a child in form, but he must be a God in 
power. All other persons utter only a part of the di- 
vine mind ; this One is himself perfect " Utterance." 
He is the perfect Image. Thus also Christianity points 
to One who is the Word, and in whom " dwelleth all 
the fulness of the Godhead bodily." J 

The Buddhist believes in the final loss of himself in 
some form of the Deity, perhaps the negative. The 
thought startles him, and almost induces non-belief. 

* John xvii. 3. f John xvii. 17. J Col. ii. 9. 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 39 

Nirvana, the absorbing One, is — Nothing. The Chris- 
tian also holds to the well nigh overwhelming thought 
of the union of Father, Son, and Spirit in One, which 
thought our Saviour extends until it embraces all the 
pure in heart: " That they all may be one ; as thou, 
Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be 
one in us." * 

We need not carry our investigations further. We 
have seen enough to convince us that in Buddhism 
there may be a "half-play," but also " real earnest " 
— rubbish, but gold. 

Yes, it may be asked, but has not too much been 
shown? Why the need of special revelations, if these 
seekers have come so near God's facts ? If Buddhism 
has done so much, why may it not do all? If so near 
the truth, why may it not be the truth? 

Suppose, philosophically, there could be no reply ; 
there are facts. One is, that there is no joy in Buddh- 
ism nothing but profound sorrow. With other lights 
about it, there is also felt to be for it no further progress. 
Beyond the Mongol nations it can never step. The 
system has truth, but is not the Truth; paths it has, 
but is not the Way ; light it gives, but not the Light; 

* John xvii. 21. This thought is also peculiarly delightful 
to Emerson ; so much so that he ventures a compliment upon 
the apostle who re-stated the same idea. "There never was 
a young philosopher whose breeding had fallen into the 
Christian church, by whom that brave text of Paul's was not 
specially prized — 4 Then shall also the Son be subject unto 
him who put all things under him, that God may be all in 
all.' Let the claims and virtue of persons be never so great 
and welcome, the instinct of man presses eagerly onward to 
the impersonal and illimitable." 



40 GOD-MAN. 

and never so sterile have been its fields as they are 
to-day. u It is now Atheism, fast merging into utter 
Idolatry." * With these thoughts in mind we may 
admit all that the admirers of the system claim for it. 
Nay, we are desirous of allowing that these devout 
thinkers deciphered in a rude style their inmost 
thoughts, which are also inmost truths. They saw, 
simply, what all true and earnest men must always 
see. " There is a Delphi and a Pythoness in every 
human breast," though not all are willing or know 
how, to listen. Externals change and pass away, but 
underneath the crust there are essentials which re- 
main forever. God loves truth wherever found, and 
will see to it that nothing harms it. No age in his- 
tory has been a thoroughly dark age. God has always 
kept fires lighted upon some altars. u The whole 
Past, as I keep repeating," says Carlyle, u is the pos- 
session of the Present ; the Past had always some- 
thing true, and is a precious possession. In a differ- 
ent time, in a different place, it is always some other 
side of our common Human Nature that has been 
developing itself. The actual True is the sum of all 
these ; not any one of them by itself constitutes what 
of Human Nature is hitherto developed. Better to 
know them all than misknow them. v To which of 
these three Religions do you specially adhere ? ' in- 
quires Meister of his Teacher. 8 To all the Three,' 
answers the other. ' To all the Three ; for they by 
their union first constitute the True Religion.' '' 

* Legge. 



III. 

THE GREEK AND ROMAN, 



GRECIAN mythology presents a field so vast and 
attractive, of such lofty spiritual development, 
and is so crowded with thoughts of the divine, that we 
hesitate before entering it, lest, while searching for 
the vital points demanded by our discussion, we be 
allured from the chief purpose, and linger here and 
there until the ultimate design eludes us. 

We shall not attempt, in this review, to follow the 
chronological order of development, because the chron- 
ological and logical orders often seem at variance. 

We also treat of the Grecian and Roman faiths as 
though they were one. The earlier religion of the 
Sabines, who inhabited the hills around Rome, is 
very little known. It may have had an Indian origin, 
and may have slightly modified the subsequent Ro- 
man faith. But Greek culture so affected the Roman 
that it seems dependent upon it. The same is true of 
its later mythology ; it does not present itself as essen- 
tially independent.* 

* We are aware that Hegel claims that the resemblance 
between the two religions is superficial. Cicero ought to be 

4 1 



42 GOD-MAN. 

The only marked distinction is, that the aesthetic and 
moral character of the Grecian people was deified, 
while the deification in case of the Romans had rela- 
tion to their practical and political character.* There 
was, in consequence, but little piety in Rome ; religion 
was utilitarian. It was different for a time, at least, in 
Greece. 

But setting aside these comparisons, we seek leading 
ideas. It is well known to all, that first and last the 
God-idea pervaded to the fullest extent the ancient 
Grecian faith. Pantheism nowhere appears. Grecian 
theism was in vogue long before the time of Homer, 
who, though the first theologian of Greece, invented 
nothing ; he gathered up the thoughts of ancients and 
of his contemporaries and set them to music ; he was 
the Grecian Ezra.f 

Tyler shows clearly in his chapter on " The Homeric 
Doctrine of the Gods," that correct attributes were 
theoretically ascribed to them ; but their conduct, as 
represented, presents thereto strange incongruities. 
The false ideas are the invention of men, the correct 
ones are the intuitive and almost unconscious testimony 
of the reason and conscience of man to the truth af 
God. 

good authority. " A full river of influence/' he says, u and 
not a little brook, has flowed into Rome out of Greece." 

* Scholten. 

f It will afford the Bible believer no little delight to notice 
how modern investigations are accumulating evidence, di- 
rectly and indirectly, in support of Scripture truth. They 
point with an absolutely inflexible finger to a common ori- 
ginal centre or source for mankind — an Eden, an ark, one 
blood, one family, and one religion, received by inspiration 
or developed by a common mind. 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 



43 



./Eschylus, the later u theological poet" of Greece, 
represents the supreme deity as " the universal father," 
M the universal cause," the • - all-seer," and " all-doer," 
and " all-wise." and " holy," and " merciful," the 
" most high and perfect one, blessed Zeus." 

The current expressions, u God grant," " if God 
will," " God bless thee," " God will make amends," 
" God does good, men ill," betray most clearly a pop- 
ular belief in God's unity. Tertullian, Cyprian, and 
Arnobius employ with great force against the pagans 
an argument based upon this thought. 

The relations of Zeus to the Invisible and Un- 
known have not yet been well drawn. This Zeus- 
deity merely stands at the head of Grecian civilization, 
art, and poetry. The representations that he is uni- 
versal and eternal must be received with qualification, 
for he was always represented as specific, as well as 
geiteric. He brings the world into light, but his in- 
violable decrees anticipated his own birth, and he 
has father and mother ; so that we may well ask, back 
of Zeus and back of Saturn, back of Coelus, or 
Uranus, and Terra, is — what? 

Philosophy gives an indirect answer to the question. 
Pythagoras and Philolaus tell us that u God" and 
u One " are the same. Zeno said that no temples 
should be built to that deity, who is so far above all 
works of art and of artisans. Thales taught that the 
formative principle of motion, somehow connected 
with water, is God. This reminds one of Mr. Car- 
lyle's " Force," Darwin's " Development," and Hux- 
ley's " Protoplasm." 

Apollonius taught that no offerings should be made 



44 GOD-MAN. 

to that God who is called the First. It was a dictum 
of Aristotle that " God, who is invisible to every mor- 
tal, is seen alone in his works." We perceive errors, 
undoubtedly, in these speculations, but they are errors 
that lie near or in the direction of truth. The unit of 
Pythagoras, the infinite of Anaximander, water of 
Thales, air of Anaximenes, the symmetry of Anax- 
agoras, the good of Euclid, the one and all of Plato, 
mean more than they express. " They stand for a 
great unutterable thought." They were stepping-stones 
in the majestic struggle of the human intellect towards 
the Invisible One, yet only stepping-stones. They 
were attempted solutions of the riddles and enigmas 
of divine manifestation, yet only attempts. We fail 
not to recognize in these higher philosophical specula- 
tions of the daring minds of Greece a vigorous but re- 
peatedly baffled search after God. And were this, as 
should be the case, the attitude of modern scientific 
speculation, it would no longer call forth the antago- 
nism of Christian faith. 

But these ideas of the philosophers were too ab- 
stract for the popular mind. We therefore discover a 
continual blending of the God-idea with the idea of a 
mediator. A tangible God was, from the nature of 
the case, resolutely demanded. Zeus answered this 
description for a season, and in the mean time that 
which is beyond Zeus was, by the people, forgotten. 
The masses in their search lost heart when they 
reached Zeus, and would go no farther. From ter- 
ror, wonder, or perplexity of the vastness of the All 
Soul, even the search for it was abandoned. It was at 
this point that Grecian idolatry began ; and here be- 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 45 

gins all idolatry. The moment Zeus in Greece and 
Jupiter in Rome became the only generally recognized 
First and Father of all, that moment the earlier my- 
thologies of Greece and Rome, except a few faint 
traces, were abandoned and lost ; and lost, it will be 
observed, in consequence of an existing and absolute 
necessity of a mediator between the First God, whoever 
he is, and man. It is merely an unconscious repeti- 
tion of what took place with both Brahminism and 
Buddhism ; nay, it is what occurs in every human 
soul, as well as in every religious system — an effort 
to clear away all rubbish, and find some one, or some 
thing, real and available between God and man. 

Socrates, Plato, Plutarch, as well as the masses of 
the people discovering no direct approach to God, 
were ever looking for this stand-between. Hence 
Porphyry and Phidias defended the popular image 
w r orship. Something for a mediator there must be, 
they claimed ; the what, was a matter of opinion. 
The popular Zeus-manifestation could not long satisfy. 
He was too well known to the philosophers, and not 
well enough known to the masses. Socrates em- 
bodied a prevailing sentiment, when he said that the 
true religious philosophy for imperfect beings is " an 
infinite search after the divine." " What God is," he 
says, " I know not ; w T hat he is not, I know." He 
knew he was not Zeus. 

" Believe in God and adore him," said one of the 
Greek poets, " but investigate him not ; the inquiry is 
fruitless." 

" O Jupiter ! " said Euripides, " I know nothing of 
thee but thy name." 



46 GOD-MAN. 

How clearly these expressions embody Spencers 
theory of the Unknowable. Forcibly do they confirm 
Hobbes's remark, " The name of God is used, not to 
make us conceive him, for he is inconceivable ; but 
that we may honor him." An echo is all this of the 
same sublime sentiment which broke from the lips of 
Job — " Canst thou by searching find out God?" 

In this confused condition of things, the leading 
minds of Greece vacillated between hope and despair ; 
they went from the Peripatetics to the Stoics, and 
from the Stoics to the Platonics ; but all seemed alike 
shrouded in confusion, contradiction, and doubt. Plato 
significantly defined man as the " hunter after truth." 
Diogenes lighted his lantern and walked the streets 
of Athens in daylight to find a — man; a faultless 
man ; an ideal man ; a leader to higher attainments. 
This effort of the Greek philosopher calls to mind the 
similar challenge of the Hebrew prophet, " Run ye to 
and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now 
and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye 
can find a man, if there be any that executeth judg- 
ment, that seeketh the truth ; and I will pardon it." * 

The search, at times, seemed to end in despair. 
The elder Pliny was in so great darkness while 
attempting to understand the way in which the " im- 
measurable creative Spirit " could be related to man, 
that he exclaimed, u What is* God ? If in truth he be 
anything distinct from the world, it is beyond the com- 
pass of man's understanding to know. It is a foolish 
delusion to imagine that the infinite spirit would con- 
cern himself with the petty affairs of men. Man is full 

* Jeremiah v. 1. 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 47 

of desires. Man's nature is a lie. The greatest good 
God has bestowed on man is the power of taking his 
own life." 

Philosophers were at times exasperated into avow- 
ing themselves atheists. Lucretius openly denied the 
existence of the gods, Euhemerus made sport of them, 
reduced them to a history of nature and to symbols of 
agriculture, and Plutarch subtilized them. At other 
times Nature was looked upon as the tie between God 
and man. Plato, who was both the most ultra of 
spiritualists and the most ultra of materialists, found 
the chief divine manifestation in the outer universe. 
This was also a phase of ancient Persian worship. 

There were two Gods in Plato's scheme, the Seen 
and the Unseen ; upon the principle of the Ego and 
the Alter Ego. The universe was simply a created 
God, " the only begotten universe." It was some- 
thing 

" Whose body Nature is, and God the soul." 

Even the world, to Plato's mind, has a soul ; there- 
fore it was, he thought, an animal. We can easily ima- 
gine him bowing to the stars throbbing in the midnight 
heavens, and to the various forms of earthly beauty, 
as our New England philosopher gives his lusty morn- 
ing salute to the whispering pine or the incoming 
ocean. But Plato fondly and easily stepped from this 
materialism into spiritualistic idealism. Nature, he 
felt, as we may presently see, was not the only tie 
between God and man. 

Back of all this materialism and these troops of 
gods, we find in others, as well as in Plato, occasional 



48 GOD-MAN. 

glimpses of a really lofty spiritualism. Such, most 
likely, was the original basis of all Grecian mythol- 
ogy. Mercury, the messenger of God, Perseus, born 
of a virgin, Hercules, who burned himself to death, 
Orpheus, Musaeus, Melampus, and Pompilius Numa 
of Rome enter into a material, better, perhaps, an 
objective superstructure, which has a profound and 
everlasting spiritual basis. As soon as the material 
form, or the personification, was presented, it caught 
the popular eye, and held it ; and this was the hea- 
then's necessity, but also his mistake. Much advan- 
tage had the Jew ; it rested chiefly in his Scripture 
and authority. 

It was so much easier for the Greek to speak of 
Phoebus Apollo, Pallas Athene, Aphrodite, Ares, 
Hephaestus, Hestia, Hermes, Artemis, than of the 
abstract powers of nature which they were made to 
represent ; and so very much easier than to dwell 
upon the Universal Abstract which lies, and is felt to 
lie, back of all, that they often fell into unbelief and list- 
lessness. In their doubt and scepticism they came to 
worship the creature more than the creator. Indolence 
is usually the nurse, if not the mother, of scepticism. 

But the strongest incentive to the search, in case of 
the Greek as with other nations, was the felt necessity 
of a mediator, w 7 ho is able to remove human guilt. 
If he could not do this, he was at once dismissed. 
This matter of guilt always has been, and always 
will be, the fearfulest chasm between God and man. 
" No man is found," says Seneca, " who can acquit 
himself." " If you wish to be good," says Epictetus, 
" first believe that you are bad." " There is want- 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 49 

ing," says Porphyry, " some universal method of 
delivering men's souls, which no sect of philosophy 
has ever yet found out." 

These expressions are similar to Plato's earnest long- 
ing for emancipation and redemption ; they are the 
anticipation of that wail which broke from the soul of 
the great apostle, " Who shall deliver me from the 
body of this death?" 

As might be expected, both from the nature of 
the case and from universal experience, different 
forms of sacrifice, among the Greeks and Romans, 
were resorted to for relief. The earlier sacrifices of 
the Greeks consisted of human victims. These were 
subsequently abandoned, still, sacrifice in some form 
and with some kinds of victims, was practised to the 
last, excepting where a religious polytheism had given 
place to a blank atheism. Excuses for sin, based 
upon the derelictions of the gods, who were often 
represented as partakers in human crimes, afforded no 
permanent relief. The dissatisfaction and the restless 
search for something to relieve and restore continued. 
We thus arrive at the basis of Grecian and Roman, 
as of all other forms of polytheism ; they spring from 
desires and efforts to find God, and a mediator between 
God and man ; one who can unite to God, and save 
from guilt This is a tenet of universal and essential 
theology. The gods are multiplied among heathen 
nations because they do not, in these respects, satisfy. 
Greek sculpture rose to perfection, but rose- while 
feeling after, if haply it could find and reproduce, a 
God incarnate ; no other thought could have kindled 
such enthusiasm. 
4 



50 GOD-MAN. 

Every new God is, in fact, the product of deep 
desires, and shows that the search had hitherto been 
comparatively fruitless. The hand, in its reaching, 
had hit upon something, but not the thing. Plato 
represents Socrates as advising men to investigate and 
learn from others respecting these great themes, and 
then risk themselves, as on a raft, until they can be 
carried more safely, or with less risk, on a surer con- 
veyance, or some divine Logos.* 

A thousand years later, when Paul visited Athens, 
her inhabitants were still in search, and in public form 
recognized the existence of the Unknown. These 
many gods of Greece and Rome, of Persia and Egypt, 
as also those of the Hindoo faith, are so many disap- 
pointments. They are meant for mediators, radiations 
of the supreme unity ; but each has, after a while, re- 
ceived the slight and negative of the people in the sug- 
gestive cry, u We look for another ! " Monotheism, as 
we have seen, has always been embosomed in polythe- 
ism, notwithstanding its million gods ; and pantheism 
always has been, as it is to-day, an effort of cultivated 
thought to mediate between the finite and infinite.! 

* Socrates, endeavoring to satisfy the mind of Alcibiades 
on the subject of acceptable worship, says, "It is, therefore, 
necessary to wait till some one may teach us how it behooves 
us to conduct ourselves both towards the gods and men." 
To which Alcibiades responds, "When shall that time 
arrive, O Socrates? and who shall that teacher be? for most 
eagerly do I wish to see such a man." 

t Professor Naville draws this thought out respecting 
polytheism by a very happy figure : "Cut to the ground a 
young and vigorous beech tree, and come back a few years 
afterwards ; in place of the tree cut down you will find cop- 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 5 1 

u When men are questioned concerning the nature 
of divinity, " says Maximus of Tyre, " their answers 
are all different ; yet, notwithstanding all this prodi- 
gious variety of opinions, you will find one and the 
same feeling throughout the earth ; viz., that there is 
but one God, the Father of all." There is here recog- 
nized a universal religious consciousness. 

It is true that all forms of ancient polytheism have 
suffered terrible corruptions. There is truth in the 
statement that development, in all cases, tends " to 
sacerdotalism, ritualism, polytheism, and idolatry." 
It is not, therefore, surprising that the original con- 
ceptions which the ancients attempted to embody have 
been, in most instances, so strangely distorted as to 
escape recognition ; still, the religious intuitions which 
produced polytheism are, doubtless, of higher order 
than those which leave to the world nothing save a 
cold, scientific, and distant monotheism. Polytheism 
may have been the best expression of a new order of 
things that an unaided monotheism could devise. It 

pice wood; the sap which nourished a single trunk has been 
divided among a multitude of shoots. This comparison ex- 
presses well enough the opinion which tends to prevail 
among our learned men on the subject of the historical 
development of religions. The idea of the only God is at 
the root; it is primitive, polytheism is derivative. A forgot- 
ten, and as it were slumbering, monotheism exists before the 
worship of idols ; it is the concealed trunk which supports 
them, but the idols have absorbed all the sap." 

Pictet confirms the statement. "The general impression 
of the most distinguished mythologists of the present day 
is, that monotheism is at the foundation of all pagan 
mythology." 



52 GOD-MAN. 

is mediatorial throughout; nay, polytheism, rising 
from monotheism, may have been its prophetic an- 
nouncement that there cometh One, the latchets of 
whose shoes it could not unloose.* 

Before closing this review of Grecian and Roman 
mythology, we advance another step, and call atten- 
tion to two quite distinctly marked developments of 
thought, which we take the liberty of denominating 
Grecian humanitarian ism and Grecian spiritualism. 
It is interesting to notice in these and modern theories 
how often and fully the moral and religious world 
repeats itself. 

The thought in either case, it will be noticed, points 
directly to a mediator who is somehow human and 
somehow divine. At times, so strong was the inclina- 
tion in Greece and Rome to convert ordinary men 
into mediators, that great care had to be exercised by 
the philosophers, lest unworthy and ungodly persons 
should be elected to the office by vote of a fickle popu- 
lace. Plutarch throws out his challenge and warning 
thus : " If any man, elated by arrogance, has claimed 
the attributes of a God, his career has ever been but 

* It is possible that Egypt may be an exception to the gen- 
eral rule, her polytheism arising and becoming established 
at once, and from pure political considerations and changes. 
Egypt, in very ancient times, was divided into several states. 
Each capital, as Memphis, On, This, and Thebes, worshipped 
its supreme God under a distinct name, as Phtah, Ra, Amun. 
These states were subsequently united under one government 
apparently by mutual consent, or upon such conditions as 
allowed the gods of the different provinces to stand on equal 
footing in the national Pantheon. 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 53 

short, and he has been ignominiously driven out from 
the temple he desecrates." 

Pindar placed the greatest stress upon overcoming 
the tendency among men to u confound the merely 
human and divine." To him, as to us, the line be- 
tween the two is " unsurpassable." Unintentionally, 
however, some of the leading philosophers had fos- 
tered these popular impulses. 

Pythagoras, Plato, and Euripides, for instance, had 
repeatedly set forth, in various forms, the thought that 
" men are mortal gods, and gods are immortal men." 

The Greek, in common with the Oriental systems, 
though in different forms of development, held the 
opinion that there is " an essential divinity in the 
eminently good man, and a possible association, or 
connection, of the Godhead with humanity." * 

It was believed by some philosophers that all men 
have power over nature, and that this power results 
from some kind of connection with the divine. There 
are, doubtless, grains of truth in these representations. 
But when they were caught up by the common people, 
who could not well wield them, they were so sadly 
perverted that it came to be, in men's imaginings, no 
strange thing for the gods in human forms to walk the 
earth. 

The usual effort on the part of the Greek was to hu- 
manize deity ; yet he sometimes yielded to the spirit 
of Orientalism, and deified humanity. That was the 
popular Grecian creed which set forth as fundamental 
that the gods were nothing but children of women. 
Pythagoras was thought to have been a son of God. 

* Mackay. 



54 GOD-MAN. 

^Esculapius is also thus represented. At times Apollo 
displaced Zeus, and became the central figure in Gre- 
cian mythology. The Greeks and Romans were con- 
tinually elevating the most ordinary men into inter- 
mediate or subordinate divinities, and, for the want 
of something better, their intense search centred itself 
at times in Hero.-worship. In Rome this idea was 
carried so far as to well nigh shock us. Jupiter was 
practically dethroned, in order that man might be 
deified. As atheistical France deified a prostitute, 
as Roman Catholics predicate divine attributes of the 
pope, as the modern Mohammedan deifies the sultan, 
and as modern humanitarians deify humanity, so 
Rome deified her emperors, though changing daily. 
The bald-headed and squint-eyed Caligula became a 
God. 

In the startling language of Gibbon, the emperor 
of Rome was at once u a priest, an atheist, and a 
God." 

Such is humanitarianism when carried to its logical 
extreme. Yet underneath, as with other forms of 
polytheism, there is something besides shadows. Here 
are symbol and prophecy. But these extreme views 
were not received by all or by most of the best minds 
of Greece. And no wonder, for deified Nature, deified 
heroes, and deified emperors never can satisfy the 
inquiries and wants of human souls. Souls are not 
content with toys, or make-believes, however gilded. 
Paganism answered no substantial purpose in these 
phases of it, and was never accepted by Socrates, 
Pythagoras, Plato, Anaxagoras, Pericles, or any of the 
thoughtful minds of antiquity, other than as an expe- 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 55 

client. It was endured simply for the want of some- 
thing better. There may be some difficulty in drawing 
the line between this, which we have termed Grecian 
humanitarianism and Grecian spiritualism, but not so 
great as at first appears. There is an incompleteness 
in the system, but clear indications that these great 
minds were vigorously struggling towards the light in 
their search for the truth. Plato speaks of One, ideal 
or real, as we please to call him, who embodies all 
that is true in modern civilization. Let us designate 
that conception as spiritualism ; better, theistic spirit- 
ualism. Why stagger at terms? This Super-human 
One that great philosopher called " Logos," " Reason," 
" Shadow of God," " Ideal Man," " Secondary God," 
"Name of God," "Looker on God," "Divine Im- 
age," "Eldest of Ideal Things," "Undivided Asso- 
ciation of the Supreme," " God of God," " Light of 
Light." 

How strikingly these terms recall the language of 
the apostle, " The effulgence of the Father's glory, 
and the express image of his nature." If one of 
these conceptions be spiritualism, why not the other, 
though not equally clear? Both Socrates and Plato 
looked for the divine manifestation in a human form. 
They believed it possible for God to become man, and 
in such condition visit the earth. These thoughts, to 
whatever source we trace them, made a deep impres- 
sion upon the Grecian mind, and were subsequently 
reflected from the Roman. Cicero and Virgil em- 
ployed very definite terms respecting a coming super- 
natural Man who would be able to satisfy the baffled 
intelligence of mankind. 



5^ GOD-MAN. 

Faith took shape in Seneca's mind thus : " No good 
man is holy without God." " The wise or ideal man 
is the equal with God." How 7 the thoughts of these 
men of spiritual insight hovered about, though not 
fully comprehending the divine Logos ! They w r ere 
often in a kind of bewilderment — lost; but, in com- 
parison with many others, how "delightfully lost"! 
The symbols and prophecies of the past were with 
these men, at length, to be realized. But pause — to 
find in the pagan world a higher and its highest type, 
we must go back. 

Socrates anticipated Christian spiritualism, if we 
mistake not, more perfectly than any other, outside 
the Jewish prophets, until Jesus came. We fix atten- 
tion for a moment upon the last scenes of his noble 
life. He had taken in his hand the poison which he 
was condemned to drink as a legal penalty for being 
true to truth, and then remarked, " It is certainly both 
lawful and right to pray to the gods that my departure 
thither may be happy ; which therefore I pray, and so 
may it be." "And as he said this," says Plato, "he 
drank it off readily and calmly. . . . Having walked 
about, and saying that his limbs were growing heavy, 
he lay down upon his back, for the man so directed 
him. Afterwards Socrates touched himself and said, 
that when the poison reached his heart he should then 
depart. Later he uncovered himself, — for he had 
been covered over, — and said, — and they were his 
last words, — 4 Crito, we owe a cock to ^Esculapius ; 
pay it, therefore, and do not neglect it.' ' It shall be 
done/ said Crito ; ' but consider w T hether you have 
anything else to say.' To this question he gave no 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 57 

reply ; but shortly after he gave a convulsive move- 
ment, and the man covered him, and his eyes were 
fixed ; and Crito, perceiving it, closed his mouth and 
eyes. This, Echecrates, was the end of our friend, a 
man, as we may say, the best of all his time that we 
have known, and, moreover, the most wise and just." 
This, we hear it said, is the death of a pagan. 
But is there here no faith, no Christian theism even ? 
Who was this yEsculapius, to .whom Socrates looked 
in the last moments of his life ? An ordinary physi- 
cian? No. Yet a physician of whom it was reported 
that he could heal by the power of his word, or his 
touch, all manner of diseases that were brought to 
him. This yEsculapius was a god, the God of Res- 
toration. He was the god w 7 ho once used the blood 
flowing from his veins for the benefit of human beings. 
He was sometimes represented as the Light of the 
World ; the one who gives repose ; whose statue is 
the image and figure of Jove slightly modified. He 
was represented at other times as seated upon a 
throne, holding in one hand a sceptre, in the other 
the head of a strangled serpent. O, whence came 
these ideas? To this God-man, Physician, and Re- 
storer, to this one who, more clearly than any other 
Grecian god prefigures the Christian's Physician, 
Friend, and Saviour, Socrates, the great and grand 
prophet of Greece, looked, and feeling that this one 
the most fully embodied what the race needed, and 
what his own soul longed for, spoke his name, and 
died. In this act there was no delirium, but an ex- 
pression of the great beating and hunting heart of 
humanity. Here was Christianity — beclouded. If a 



58 GOD-MAN. 

Christian be one who devotedly seeks God through a 
mediator, then we know not, if a Christian lived on 
earth prior to Christ, why Socrates was not a Chris- 
tian. " Sancte Socrates, ora pro nobis." * 

But was Socrates faultless ? Nay. Was Jacob ? f 

* Erasmus. t Appendix, A. 



IV. 
THE ISRAELITE AND ISHMAELITE. 



THE Israeli tish religion rests upon the same basis 
as Islamism. They both distinctly recognize 
subjection to an absolute will as the vital point in their 
faith. 

Belief in monotheism and antagonism to idolatry 
constitute their natural strength. Whatever is original 
in the two systems belongs, however, to the Israelite. 
Its Jewish origin shows itself in all its better features. 
The name for its sacred writings, Koran, is borrowed 
for the biblical term mikra, reading. Scholten, 
though, as some think, in error respecting other state- 
ments, is quite right in saying that " what is true and 
good in Islamism was borrowed from Israel and 
Christianity." " Islam," says Carlyle, " is definable 
as a confused form of Christianity ." It has been well 
termed " a heresy of Christianity." "'We think," says 
Deutsch, " that Islam is neither more nor less than 
Judaism adapted to Arabia plus the apostolate of 
Jesus and Mahomet." 

The Israelitish faith was, doubtless, partly natural ; 

59 



60 GOD-MAN. 

and may it not also have been partly supernatural? 
partly inspired by nature ; and may it not also have 
been in part, and in a peculiar manner, God-inspired? 
The basis of it is not distinctively Hebrew, but is, 
beyond question, natural and common to all the other 
Semitic nations. Let not this admission disturb the 
Christian believer. For were God to form a super- 
natural religion, he would not reject existing materials, 
did they answer his purpose. He is an economizer, 
and always practises rigidly upon the precept enjoined 
by his Son, u Gather up the fragments ; let nothing be 
lost." Nothing slips undetected through his ringers. 
Truth is his wherever found, and he is not ashamed to 
use and own it. 

Among all the Oriental nations there was a religious 
spirit that arose above the worship of nature. Bel 
among the Babylonians, Baal among the Ammonites 
and Moabites, Molech among the ancient Phoenicians 
and Carthaginians, Melkartht at Tyre and Carthage, 
and Jehovah, more properly Javah, of Israel, in each 
case indicates a conception of the unity of God dis- 
tinct from, apart from, and above nature. The reli- 
gious sympathy between these nations was so strong 
that the Israelites, notwithstanding the most resolute 
opposition of their prophets, constantly inclined to the 
worship of Baal and Molech. 

The science of comparative philology, when applied 
to these Semitic religions, shows that they all had 
their " root originally in one and the same soil." * 

The pure conceptions, which were reached in some 
individual instances, are seen in the old Canaanitish 

* Appendix, B. 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 6 1 

chieftains Melchizedeck and Abimelech, who wor- 
shipped the same God as Abraham ; indeed, long 
before the patriarch reached the Land of Promise, 
and while his father was engaged in idol-making, the 
beautiful hills of Palestine were adorned with altars 
and smoking with sacrifices to the same One Being 
who is found in the original development of Brah- 
minism. 

Yet no one can look upon the Israelitish religion as 
a whole, not as frequently practised by the people, 
but as always taught by the prophets, and recorded in 
the sacred books, without discovering that apart from 
these natural or common elements there is also a 
marked difference in subsequent developments between 
it and all other Semitic religious systems.* 

Such are the facts in the case. The only really dif- 
ficult question is to account, upon naturalistic grounds, 
for this u disposition " and this advanced step of the 
people of Israel. Did Abraham really receive a spe- 
cial call, and were the prophets under special instruc- 

* Scholten states this satisfactorily: " While most of the 
Semitic nations, in opposition to the effort to elevate God 
above nature as lord and governor, returned to the old na- 
ture-religion, with its grossly sensual worship of the divine, 
and others got no farther than to the conception of a deity, 
who, like a consuming fire, stood opposed to nature, and was 
to be appeased and propitiated by human sacrifices, there 
was developed among the Israelitish people, gradually and 
in constantly higher measure, in connection with a higher 
moral and religious disposition, the worship of God as a 
being who, though distinct from nature, is yet not opposed 
to it, and thus no longer demands human sacrifices, but obe- 
dience and moral consecration." 



62 GOD-MAN. 

tion ? If we can give an affirmative answer, our path 
is clear of difficulties, otherwise it is well beset. 

The Israelites, first and last, were not philosophers. 
No people were less prepared to make religious dis- 
coveries ; none, by dint of will or intellect, were more 
illy prepared to reduce religious haze and nebula to 
order and system. They did not make their religion ; 
it seems to have made them. With obstinate tenden- 
cies towards idolatry, they were kept, not to a cold 
and scientific, but to a lofty and inspiring theism. 

Two centuries before Christ there was written in 
Alexandria the book of the Wisdom of Solomon. It 
is as philosophical as anything in Jewish literature; 
still it is hardly a philosophy. The spirit that per- 
vades it is metaphysical dualism. It holds to what 
may be termed a personal God and a divine emana- 
tion. But its divine -emanation is an idea, not a per- 
son. It is that which " fills all things, permeates the 
souls of the holy, and is difiiused like a luminous ether 
throughout the universe." 

Some of the sentiments of this book are pure, lofty, 
and dignified. It anticipated many truths subsequently 
enunciated in the Gospels. A u hope full of immor- 
tality " (Wisd. iii. 4) ; " the souls of the righteous are 
in the hand of God" (Wisd. iii. 1) ; a to know thee 
[O God] is perfect righteousness ; yea, to know Thy 
power is the root of immortality " (Wisd. iii. 9), are 
beautiful and inspiring when viewed in the light of 
Christianity. The treatise, however, is indebted to 
Persian and Grecian thought, and especially to the 
utterances of Old Testament prophets, for its philos- 
ophy and for its sublime truth. 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 63 

Of a later date is Philo, the contemporary of Jesus. 
His is the only name in Jewish history that is worthy 
of the title philosopher ; and he is not original. He 
is Platonized through and through. His reasoning 
upon the nature of deity shows that he stood compara- 
tively independent of the prophetic schools, but not 
of the schools of philosophy. u When we attempt to 
investigate the essence of the Absolute Being," he 
says, w we fall into an abyss of perplexity ; and the 
only benefit derived from such researches is the con- 
viction of their absurdity." His God is not, therefore, 
the God of Abraham, but is an abstract being, who 
has no personality. Philo does not, however, stop in 
this state of despair ; but, like a true Jew of the 
divine school, he says, u Unable to see God himself, 
we may at least hope to see his image — the most 
holy Logos, in whom is comprehended the most per- 
fect of sensible things — the universe. " But here again 
Philo's Logos is never lifted from the region of ab- 
stractions. He was perhaps the father of a modern 
notion that " each man is the true Messiah and 
Saviour of himself." We repeat, Philo, in laying 
any claims to philosophy, stands in the Jewish com- 
monwealth almost alone.* 

The prophets and Jewish teachers were not, by the 
slightest pretence on their part, philosophers, nor can 
we institute any such claim for them. They indulge 
in no speculations about God. He is represented as 
creating and ruling. He is the " I am," and the 
Jehovah, — the coming One. He is such and such, 
and there the prophets stop. Of his generic nature 

* Appendix, C. 



64 GOD-MAN. 

and substance they never speak. Whatever may have 
been the tendency of the common people towards idola- 
try, polytheism, images of God and image-worship, their 
sacred books and their inspired prophets countenance 
nothing of the kind, but severely condemn all such 
approaches. The Hebrew prophets attempted to ex- 
plain God no more than a child attempts to explain his 
father. Yet to this sublime doctrine of theism the 
Hebrew nationality, under the personal influence of 
their prophets and the teachings of their sacred books, 
in the midst of polytheism and idolatry, has clung dur- 
ing a period dating two thousand years before, and 
extending to two thousand years since, their exile. 
Israel stands in this respect without a parallel. 



From the God-idea of the Israelite we turn, for a 
moment, to that of the Ishmaelite. The first historic 
notices of the ancient nomadic tribes of the Arabian 
peninsula find them worshippers of the stars, the 
powers of nature, sacred stones, imaginary angels, and 
images. But there was, doubtless, among them a pre- 
historic religious epoch. It discloses itself in the 
worship of Allahtaala, and points to a more distant 
monothedism. It can hardly be questioned that the 
stars, the powers of nature, and the like, were merely 
looked upon at first as mediators between the Invisible 
and man. They were waymarks in the journey to the 
Infinite. In their influence they played the part of a 
talisman. But thoughts of the Unknown One at length 
confused the minds of these early Arabs, and they paid 
their devotions and offered their sacrifices, not to the 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 65 

" All," but directly and exclusively to invented, medi- 
ating, and deified things. From this state of idolatry 
they were first effectually aroused by Mohammed. He 
was no ordinary man, but one of the greatest ; he was 
religious, not ambitious. Those who knew him best 
named him " Al Amin," the Faithful. His purpose 
was to revive the religion of Abraham, Isaac, and Ja- 
cob. Like Zoroaster,* Sakya-muni, and Martin Lu- 
ther, Mohammed was a protestant reformer. And 
like them, he, too, was no sham or false man. " A 
false man form a religion ! " exclaims Carlyle. " Why, 
a false man cannot build a brick house." 

He was born at Mecca (571), of a reputable family, 
belonging to the Koreish tribe. After his first public 
announcements, he suffered the various reverses of all 
reformers. He at length overcame the prejudices of 
his friends, organized troops, conquered Mecca (630), 
and made the Kaaba the sanctuary of the new religion. 

Islam (submission to God) is the word which em- 
bodies the doctrine of Mohammed, whence also his fol- 
lowers take the name Moslems. Nothing is truer or 
subliiner than this underlying principle of their faith. 

* Zerdusht, or, as the Greeks call him, Zoroaster, found the 
Persians worshippers of idols. His mission was that of a 
reformer. His religion was a simple form of theism. He 
recognized but one God, who was Creator, Preserver, and 
Ruler. He taught that the divine one is without form, and 
invisible; that he is an immense light, and that " his mer- 
cies are boundless as his being." The followers of this Per- 
sian reformer have been called the Puritans of the Old World. 
They came to hate idolatry bitterly. ''They taught their 
children, ' says Herodotus, "how to ride, shoot, and speak 
the truth." 

5 



66 GOD-MAN. 

" If this be Isla?n" asks Goethe, " do we not all believe 
in Islam ? " The first public act of the reformer was to 
abolish idols and idol-worship. At the same time he 
pointed the people to the one Allah. His purpose 
was not merely to destroy, but to build up. In these 
acts he was no coward, but full of daring. " This 
wild man of the Desert, with his wild, sincere heart, 
earnest as death and life, with his great flashing nat- 
ural eyesight, had seen into the kernel of the matter. 
Idolatry is nothing ; these wooden idols of yours, ' ye 
rub them with oil and wax, and the flies stick onto 
them ; ' these are wood, I tell you ! They can do 
nothing. ' Allah Abkar, God is great.' " 

But Mohammed's philosophy is not so good as his 
heart. His Allah is enthroned on high, and in the 
strictest isolation from the world.* Thus, by separat- 
ing God as the abstract Supreme Being from the world, 
Mohammedanism, as Scholten states, leaves no place 
for the doctrine of God's immanence. God's spirit no 
longer dwells in man. The divine revelations remain 
purely mechanical, with no natural, or, in the true 
sense, supernatural point of connection in man. Hence 
there can be no enduring prophetism, which is the 
fundamental principle of Judaism and Christianity. 
From this separation between God and man, the Mo- 
hammedan doctrine of predestination, in distinction 
from the Christian, is abstract and fatalistic. Man has 
no free activity in which God's power and life are 
glorified, but is merely a passive instrument of a high- 

* Our friends of the opposition are right, but perhaps for- 
get themselves when they call Mohammedanism " the Unita- 
rianisin of the East/' 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 6/ 

er power. To true moral independence, therefore, the 
Moslem does not attain. His religion, as a whole, is 
legal and external, therefore cold, intolerant, and ex- 
clusive ; a and when Islamism, led by excited passion 
and a heated imagination, disregarded the sanctity of 
marriage, and held up as a reward before the faithful 
Moslem, a paradise characterized by sensual enjoy- 
ment, it missed at once the deep moral and spiritual 
character of Christianity." 

Still, Mohammedanism, though a system of error, has 
done not a little for the cause of truth. It has always 
held to some tenets which are common to both Jewish 
and Christian believers. " It was wrong, and yet not 
wholly wrong." " Your salutation in Paradise," it 
said, u shall be Salem" — Peace. " Ye shall sit on 
seats facing one another. All grudges shall be taken 
away out of your hearts." Such expressions would be 
an adorning to any religion. Prayer, hospitality, and 
benevolence also occupy a prominent place in the 
Islam faith. Belief in the future life, the Jewish-Par- 
see form of the resurrection, the final judgment, future 
rewards and punishments, are essential doctrines in the 
Mohammedan creed. Belief in communications from 
the unseen Lord to the pure and good, though contrary 
to the spirit of their philosophy, is never called in 
question by the followers of Mohammed. Indeed, they 
teach that God, from the earliest times, revealed him- 
self to some privileged men, as to Adam, Noah, Abra- 
ham, Moses, and Jesus ; and of those thus favored, 
Mohammed is regarded as the greatest and last of the 
prophets. In him the revelations of God are thought 
to find their culmination and their end. 



68 GOD-MAN. 

The Mohammedan soldier exclaimed, " God is one, 
and man is his minister to do his will on earth. Ma- 
homet is his prophet." He needed no additional 
incentive. He swept onward in his startling con- 
quests. Those u dusky millions have felt daily a 
power in this watchword. Nightly the watchmen of 
Cairo, when they cry, ' Who goes?' with the response 
will hear, ' Allah abkar, Islam/ " 

But with Mohammed and the visible government of 
the caliph the divine manifestation ends. No new 
prophet can arise. God is to remain unobserving, 
distant, cold. The Mohammedan will henceforth 
worship his faithful mare and the desert.* The new 
history with which Mohammed was to have the world 
begin, admits no additional step of religious progress. 
Their clarion shouts have already lost their startling 
effect upon the plains of Arabia. Here, in a system 
that evokes no love, which impels submission, which 
is well characterized by the epithet, " a pantheism of 
force," end the triumphs of the Crescent. No further 
or closer connection with the divine, no atonement, no 
universal kingdom inspire the people. An early his- 
tory of conquests, based upon an intense belief in God, 
and in a divinely-inspired man, so intense, clear, and 
simple, as to leave scarce any room for heresy or 
schism, and a future history of defeats are what remain. 
It is a " fatal legacy." It now acts " as a gradual decay 
in every nation over which it dominates." Here is 
witnessed the fact that a pure theism, without the 
power or possibility of manifestation, cannot live on 
earth. Such negation shocks human nature beyond 

* Appendix, D. 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 69 

endurance, saps the foundations of belief, and opens 
the door to practical atheism. 

Long since Mohammedanism had found its grave 
but for the imaginary connection between God and the 
Sultan. In this earthly sovereignty remains, for a 
while a central, natural, and religious power. As a 
shadow of that which resembles the truth, it affords a 
temporary support. When this falls or is questioned, 
Islamism is no more. 

We now pass to the personal God, and Messiah-idea 
of the Jewish faith, which draw a broad line between 
Judaism and Islamism. The faith of the Israelite 
w r as made, first and last, to centre itself in a personal 
deity, who is ever present with his children, and w T ho 
interests himself in all the affairs of mortals. The 
early prophets, without for an instant losing sight of 
a pure theism, have, at the same time, clear visions of a 
King, who shall be the " manifestation of God," his per- 
fect image, the Son of Man, the Son of God, not the hu- 
man Sultan, but the divine Deliverer. Isaiah has given 
the world a vision, which, for clearness and sublimity, 
upon grounds of the coldest criticism, finds no equal 
among mortals. Amid scenes of terrible conflicts and 
utter darkness he saw in the distance a Light. He 
saw the joy of the people, heard their shouts, and de- 
picted their deliverance. He saw the armor of war 
laid aside, the image of Peace succeeding, the light 
expanding, becoming more and more intense, and the 
darkness on every hand retiring. He gazed upon the 
wonderful scenes — they were transformed, and there 
stood before him a little child, but one upon whose 
shoulders the government of the world was placed. 



^O GOD-MAN. 

These prophetic visions produced impressions upon 
the Jewish heart, which for ages were deeper than any- 
other, and which have never been entirely obliterated. 

It is a remarkable fact that the Jew\s, though pro- 
fessedly strict monotheists, never attacked Christ or 
his disciples upon the ground of polytheism. They 
looked, in common, for a divine Messiah. "Make us 
gods who shall go before us," the people demanded 
of Aaron. A deliverer who should be a God, or a 
Son of God, was the strongest and deepest feeling in 
the heart of every Jewish patriot. The common peo- 
ple differed, it is true, in their opinions as to the char- 
acter of the Mediator. Some looked for a half-human 
and half-divine King. Others expected to see him 
appear in the form of a bloody conqueror. This was 
especially the case after the Maccabean conquests. 
Nothing is more natural, perhaps, than for the nobili- 
ty, and courage of Judas Maccabeus, before whom the 
vast armies of the Seleucidae disappeared like morning 
mist, to furnish the Jew with an -ideal Messiah. " This 
vision of the warrior archangel was thenceforward 
ever to float before their eyes. ,, The masses were never 
quite able to understand how the empire of Messiah 
could be established by teaching, instead of fighting. 
Josephus thought he recognized the Divine One in 
Vespasian. 

But there were others still who looked for a spirit- 
ual and divine reformer, a Saviour of the world. 
Such, when he appeared, w~ere satisfied with Jesus 
of Nazareth. 

These expectations, in various forms, were rife, 
not only among the school of the prophets, but were 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 7 1 

talked of elsewhere. His name was heard more 
frequently than any other in the schools of Hillel, 
Philo, and among the Essenes. The duty of every 
true Hebrew was to consider it possible for the Mes- 
siah to appear in himself. These convictions, it may 
be noticed, were in part the product of the prophetic 
writings, and in part the prophecies of humanity. 
As in case of the theism of Israel, so these Messianic 
longings and expectations had their natural and wide- 
spread basis, as well as their supernatural and special 
development. God fosters what is common to human 
nature, instead of inventing what is foreign to it. He 
is no more a friend to one part of his work than he is 
to another. If nature, which is God's child, and which 
he loves, were strong enough, he would allow her to 
produce, without interference, the Supernatural. " Nat- 
ural," were it possible, would take the place of Super- 
natural " Selection " and " Development.'' God is 
jealous, not of nature, though of man. Yet as things 
are constituted, the supernatural is the natural carried 
beyond natural possibility ; but there is no change of 
directions. 

The root-faith, in the subject before us, is belief in a 
mediating and divine Prince. This is the product of 
a common understanding among men. No religion 
can be a universal religion that does not recognize it, 
and God would not " gather up the fragments," did 
he not employ it as a part foundation of his special 
providential and universal superstructure, whatever 
that may be. 

The same statements apply also to the Israel itish 
idea of sacrificial atonement. There is a natural and 



f2 GOD-MAN. 

universal basis, known and acted upon long before 
special revelations in the Hebrew Scriptures, as well as 
a supernatural, ordained and symbolic superstructure. 
Had he received no special directions, Abel would, 
nevertheless, have offered in sacrifice " the firstlings 
of his flock." 

The Jews represent their God as ordering sacri- 
fices. Why object? May it not have been a divine 
recognition of a human necessity? The sacrifice of 
human beings, even, was not, among the people of 
Israel, altogether unknown.* But, excepting in great 
emergencies, it had not the divine approval, f Shall 
the Jewish faith, on account of its sacrifices, be con- 
demned, as entirely of human invention? 

Take away the principle of sacrifice from any peo- 
ple, or any religion, leaving no substitute, there would 
of necessity be a void so awful that conscience must 
be violated or permitted to fill it. Human nature has 
remained too long essentially the same in this respect 
to be revolutionized by merely natural expedients. 

But, leaving speculation, return to the simple fact of 
the Israelitish faith in the Messiah. The belief was 
wide-spread. In common, the Jew and Samaritan 
looked for one greater than their father Abraham. At 
his advent the Jew expected to see his nation suddenly 
" exalted to new bloom and lustre." When Pompey 
entered the Holy of Holies, he was surprised to find 
no image. He did not understand that this sacred 
apartment of the temple was in waiting for its true 

* Ex. xxxii. 27-29; Num. xxv. 4; 2 Sam. xxi. 1-14. 
t Deut. xii. 31 ; Jer. xix. 5, 6. 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 73 

and divine Lord and Master. With a half-glance one 
cannot fail to discover that the entire Jewish theocra- 
cy is made up from ideas of sacrifice, atonement, and 
a coming Messiah. 

Scripture figures and types are otherwise meaning- 
less. There is, upon any other supposition, no unity 
or force in Old Testament history, or prophecy. In- 
troduce these elements, and there is one manifest ob- 
ject from Adam to the origin of the Jewish common- 
wealth ; from the prophets until " Behold the Lamb 
of God ! " broke from the lips of John the Baptist. 
All incidental prophecies, histories, and biographies 
manifestly bear upon their surface a divine One. In 
him all sacrifices, rites, ceremonies, and types find 
their common centre and complete fulfilment. This 
explains those outbursts of feeling in the Jewish na- 
tion which occasionally knew no bounds. A wild 
" blaze of prophetic anticipation " at times swept over 
the people. It was the inspiring promise of his com- 
ing which, in hours of adversity, brought every Jew- 
ish harp from the willows, and evoked their happiest 
songs of praise. The united anthems of the prophetic 
books, in force and beauty, will never be equalled. " I 
see him, but not nigh. He shall have dominion from 
sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the 
earth. Break forth into singing, and cry aloud. The 
Lord of Hosts is thy name. The Lord of the whole 
earth shall he be called. The wilderness and the soli- 
tary place shall be glad, and the desert shall rejoice 
and blossom as the rose." 

The concluding books of the Old Testament are less 
inspiring, but have an intensity of meaning rarely met 



74 GOD-MAN. 

with elsewhere. These " short, convulsive sobs of a 
dying dispensation contain, in their broken and pa- 
thetic eloquence, many gleams of glorious hopes and 
splendid predictions, like the beautiful visions that 
cheer the death-bed of the sad and weary." 

The Jews of to-day need not detain us. Their his- 
tory is a sad one. Two thousand years ago they said 
the Messiah was then coming. They made extensive 
preparations to receive him. To-day they say he has 
not come. They have lost heart, and fall to worship- 
ping Dollars. The essence of true worship with the 
Jew is no longer morality. The deep feeling of de- 
pendence on God and the spontaneity of religious life 
are, among this people, rarely met with. Faith in the 
Most High, who, enthroned in heaven, " puts purity 
into the closet, and allows the most intimate com- 
munion with the true worshipper," no longer charac- 
terizes this nation of hucksters. What next they 
scarcely know. That He will come has been through 
history a bond of union, but this to-day yields to a 
bond of mutual and financial interest. 

Alas for the descendants of Abraham ! Islam sees 
God in the ruling sultan, and worships a horse. Israel 
trembles upon the verge of atheism, and consecrates 
an altar to Mammon. 



V. 

THE ABORIGINAL AMERICAN. 



A REVIEW or comparison of religious thoughts 
would not answer its purpose did we leave 
from our account, as is often done, the original inhab- 
itants of the American continent. Here were peoples 
and nations numbering in the aggregate from ten to 
twenty million souls, and speaking six hundred dif- 
ferent dialects. Here was mankind presented under 
various phases, from brutal abasement up to at least 
a limited civilization. At the northern extremity of 
America were the pygmy Esquimaux, a trifle above 
four feet in height, and at the southern the Patagonian 
giants of seven feet. Here humanity has unquestion- 
ably existed in such numbers and of such character as 
to demand attention, if we correctly settle what are 
some of the religious ideas which are innate or com- 
mon to the race. 

The Indians, who occupied both sides of the Alle- 
ghany Mountains, upon the arrival of the English colo- 
nists possessed the same general characteristics. They 
loved their respective tribes, treated their wives cruelly, 

75 



76 GOD-MAN. 

and their children with indifference. The grand ele- 
ment in the Indian character is stoicism. The Indian 
is gloomy, stern, severe, and is a stranger to mirth and 
laughter. He desires, above all things, to be let and 
left alone. He has, however, deep religious convic- 
tions. His Supreme Being is the Great, sometimes 
called the Good Spirit. There were tribes — for in- 
stance the Natchez, near the Mississippi — who wor- 
shipped the sun, and erected temples upon whose 
altars, as in the Jewish temples, they kept a perpetual 
fire. 

Others — for illustration the Araucanians of South 
America, who, in true courage, in manliness and 
energy of character, take precedence of all the ori- 
ginal American nations, and who maintained their 
independence against the best troops and the best 
generals of Spain for two hundred years, while they 
intensely believed in a Supreme Being, have neither 
temples, nor idols, nor religious rites. The Indians 
generally, if not universally, believed in a future state ; 
their descriptions make it resemble the heaven of 
Mohammed. 

The good and brave, according to their belief, enter 
beautiful and eternal hunting-grounds ; the wicked 
fall into the hands of a relentless master. Their reli- 
gious thought and spirit threw coloring over every 
object of nature. Theirs was a kind of theistic natu- 
ralism. The melodious names they gave to mountains, 
lakes, and rivers are suggestive. Their " Smile of the 
Great Spirit," " The First Good," and the "First 
Fair," enthrone truth, and .hint to us the past poetico- 
religious character even of the unsettled and savage 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 77 

tribes of America. Of the settled and partially civil- 
ized nations, we call attention, especially to two.* 

The largest empire in the early history of America 
was the Peruvian. Her people were unwarlike, and 
devoted themselves to art and agriculture. The gov- 
ernment was an absolute despotism based upon a strict 
theocracy. This feature mitigated largely the rigors 
of its constitutional despotism. The temporal sover- 
eign of Peru was, like the monarchs of Egypt and 
Japan, the supreme pontiff. Pie also assumed, like 
the emperor of China and the Catholic priest, the 
title " Father of the People/' He was regarded as 
the descendant and representative of the great deity, 
the Sun, who was supposed to inspire the pontiff's 
councils and speak through his orders and decrees. 
The race of the ruling Incas was held sacred, and 
their claim to celestial origin seems, by the people, to 
have been implicitly believed. 

The founder of the line of the Incas is to the Peru- 
vians what Buddha is to the Buddhists. Not far from 
eleven hundred of our era Manco Capac, with his wife, 
and Mama Ocello, his sister, appeared as strangers 
upon the banks of the Lake Titicaca. Doubtless by 
some fortune of the sea, they or their ancestors had 
drifted from the shores of China. They brought with 
them the principles of a higher civilization and purer 

* This whole question of an earlier American civilization, 
destroyed by its own corruptions or by the northern and 
more barbarous Indian tribes, which swept down from the 
north, closely analogous, perhaps, to the condition of Europe 
in mediaeval times, is intensely interesting, and will, it is 
hoped, invite and receive ere long the attention deserved. 



78 GOD-MAN. 

religion than those of the native Peruvians. They 
were taken to be " children of the sun ; " were be- 
lieved in ; then worshipped. 

How naturally and fondly humanity worships a deity 
in human form ! The people of Lystra exclaimed, 
when they saw the deeds of Paul and Barnabas, " The 
gods are come down to us in the likeness of men ! " 
and prepared their garlands and oxen for sacrifice.* 

Manco Capac, like Sakya-nruni, Zoroaster, and 
Odin, was a religious reformer. Like Quetzalcoalt 
of the Mexicans, the Bochica of the Muyscas in New 
Grenada, and the Camarara of the Brazilians, so 
Manco Capac w r as looked upon by the Peruvians as 
God-sent. May he not have been? Whose are the 
world's reformers, her teachers, prophets, and workers 
of miracles? May not the same providence which 
sent Paul and Barnabas to Lystra have also sent 
Capac and Ocello to the shores of Peru ? Who gov- 
erns the affairs of this world, God, man, or chance? 

The Peruvians, like the Chinese, worshipped the 
sun, the moon, the evening star, the spirit of thunder, 
and the rainbow. To these deities they had temples 
erected in Cusco, as the Chinese have in Pe-kimf 
Their sacrifices consisted of those objects of their 
own industry which were most highly prized — fruit, 
grain, and animals. 

The story of Manco Capac and Mama Ocello, and 
the beneficence of the ruling Incas, is to-day fresh in 

* Acts xiv. 11-13. 

t The Chinese festival, observed at the summer solstice, 
resembles, in a marked degree, the grand solar festival of 
Peru. 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 79 

the memories of the Peruvians. The accounts have 
been handed down from father to son with fondest 
admiration. Abraham is no better remembered among 
the Jews. 

Three centuries of humiliation and misfortune have 
not blasted their hopes. They will not rest, nor will 
the Indians of the territory of Quito throw off their 
mourning dress of black until their Incas, this race of 
the sons of God, return for their relief and restora- 
tion. Suffering humanity, thou shouldst have a uni- 
versal Restorer ! * 

Next to the Peruvian ranked the early Mexican 
empire. Probably not far from 500 of the Chris- 
tian era the Toltecks first occupied the Mexican table- 
lands. 

The ancient towns and cities visited by Stevenson, 
which have been for ages partially covered by dense 
tropical growths of vegetation, and which point to an 
earlier civilization than that existing at the time of the 
Spanish conquests, were undoubtedly of Tolteck con- 
struction. Five or six centuries later the Toltecks 
were subdued by the Aztecs, or Mexicans proper, 
who upon the ruins of this earlier and higher civili- 
zation erected their own. 

When Cortes made his conquest, the eighth of the 
Montezuman line of monarchs ruled a territory of one 

* The barbarous murder of the Inca Atahualpa by Pizarro 
is annually represented in the form of a tragedy. "In this 
performance," says Mr. Stevenson, " the grief of the Indians 
is so natural, though excessive, their songs so plaintive, and 
the whole is such a scene of distress, that I never witnessed 
it without mingling my tears with theirs." 



80 GOD-MAN. 

hundred and thirty thousand square miles, containing 
two million subjects. The government was under an 
arbitrary aristocracy of priests and nobles. 

Their temples of worship were upon the same 
architectural plan as that of Belus at Babylon. They 
had a complicated system of theology. It was unique 
in many particulars, but in others strongly resembled 
that of the Persian fire- worshippers, and in still other 
respects it reminds one of the faith of the Hindoos of 
the Ganges. They recognized one Supreme God, the 
u omniscient " and "invisible." Yet, like all other 
nations, they sought relief in mediations and incar- 
nations. Hailzilopotchli and Tezcatlipoca were the 
chief deities to whom sacrifices were offered. These 
are approachable, because they are gods born of 
women. 

But the people were not satisfied, and, like the 
Egyptian and Buddhist, the Greek and Roman, the 
Goth and Vandal, they invented other divinities still 
more human. They desired a being who could walk 
in their midst, heal and comfort them, and in the hem 
of whose garment there should be virtue. Quetzalcoalt 
came, and answered the conditions, and inaugurated 
the Golden Age of Mexico. He was probably a dei- 
fied person, like Zoroaster, Buddha, and Odin. He 
was, according to their accounts, subsequently expelled 
from the empire by a superior God. But the Aztecs, 
year after year, looked and longed for his return. At 
first they mistook Cortes for this returning deity. 
How much this had to do with their conquest, it is 
not easy to estimate. The Aztec religion appears to 
have been cruel and savage beyond measure. Women 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 8 1 

and children, as well as men, were mercilessly sacri- 
ficed. The highest estimates of victims (human) 
throughout the empire reach fifty thousand annually. 
At the dedication of one of their great temples the 
procession of victims extended for the distance of two 
miles. 

A certain ceremony in honor of Tezcatlipoca, who 
ranked next to the Supreme and Invisible One, is to 
us painfully interesting and suggestive. This deity is 
represented as a man, faultless in form and beauty, and 
endowed with perpetual youth. 

A captive youth, remarkable for personal beauty, 
was selected to represent him, to whom divine honors 
were paid for a year. Then, amid imposing and sol- 
emn ceremonies, he was publicly executed — an atone- 
ment for the people. 

The stories of these repeated tragedies are appall- 
ing. They show what fearful and bloody coverings 
are sometimes thrown over truths which are funda- 
mental to the race. This young man, of faultless 
form, of perhaps thirty and three years, made the 
representation of deity, the God-man of the empire, 
and led forth as a sacrifice for the people, awakens in 
the heart of humanity a thought which, when once 
awakened, never slumbers.* 

* Appendix, E. 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. 



(83) 



I. 

THE GOD-IDEA. 



WE have selected the foregoing types of religious 
ideas, not because they are exhaustive, or be- 
cause they better illustrate our purpose than other forms 
of religious development, but because they answer the 
end in view as well as any other, and also because 
these especially have been attended of late with not a 
little general interest and discussion. 

The following facts, in view of the ground can- 
vassed, will, we think, be readily conceded — first, that 
Brahminism and Buddhism, Greek and Roman my- 
thology, the Israelitish and Ishmaelitish faiths, also the 
aboriginal religions of America, together with the be- 
liefs of other religions, indirectly alluded to, present, 
as their fundamental notion, an invisible and unap- 
proachable deity ; second, that they give evidence of a 
constant search after the Unseen, and that, often baffled, 
they introduce various existing or imaginary objects as 
mediators ; third, that a divine man is the grand ideal 
towards which the inquirers most fondly turn ; and 
fourth, that connected with this ideal man, or other- 
wise, is the principle of sacrificial atonement. 

35 



86 GOD-MAN. 

With these facts before us, we pause in the delinea- 
tion of the world's religions, and gathering data here 
and there, group them around the points already es- 
tablished. 

" Two things are necessary," says Theodore Parker, 
" to render religion possible ; namely, a religious facul- 
ty in man, and God out of man, as an object of that 
religious faculty." 

" That the divine is recognized by man," says Lew- 
is, " is proof that the divine exists." 

" The causal instincts of the intellect," says James 
Martineau, a the solemn suspicion of the conscience, 
the ideal passions of the imagination, the dependent 
self-renunciation of the affections, are all, we believe, 
so many lines of attraction to the same Infinite Ob- 
ject." 

" Though the Absolute," says Herbert Spencer, 
cannot in any manner or degree be known, in the strict 
sense of knowing, yet we find that its positive exist- 
ence is a necessary datum of consciousness ; that so 
long as consciousness continues, we cannot for an in- 
stant rid it of this datum ; and that thus the belief 
which this datum constitutes, has a higher warrant than 
any other whatever." 

Not unlike the foregoing is Spinoza's " finite think- 
ing," suggesting an " infinite thinking," Fichte's 
" particular ego," suggesting a " universal ego," and 
Emerson's "myself," suggesting " another self." 

That which follows from these undeniable postulates 
is certainly true — that the moment we predicate a re- 
ligious nature or consciousness of man, that moment 
God is recognized as an established fact. 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. 8j 

Jacobi correctly taught that belief in God is a primal 
instinct of the soul.* " Not to know God, and be 
a brute," he forcibly remarks, " are one and the same 
thing." 

Cicero and Philo likewise make the test of man- 
hood to rest upon this recognition of the Infinite One. 

No man can be really an atheist, though many are 
antitheists. " That God is," exclaimed Cato, " all 
nature cries aloud." We are aware, however, that the 
claim has been recently started, though not by any 
weighty authorities, that the Lepchas of Northern In- 
dia, the natives of Australia, some of the tribes of Cen- 
tral Africa, the Cafires, the South American Indians, 
and some few others, have no religion, and no idea of 
a Creator, or a God. 

But these special pleaders are often their own be- 
trayers. A little further investigation will introduce 
the chief of some of these tribes as the representative 
God of the people, while in other cases the deity is 
the medicine-man. 

And more than this, in these very instances we see 
merely a corruption of a purer faith, a lapsing from 
an earlier theism into what we may term a degrading 
mediatorialism. Of a similar character was the de- 
ification of the Roman Emperors, the Sultans of Tur- 

* " Naturally as the new-born draws nourishment from its 
mother's breast," says Jacobi, " so the heart of man takes 
hold on God in surrounding nature." 

Says Lichtenberg, " Faith in a God is instinct. It is natu- 
ral to men, just as going on two legs is natural. With many 
it is modified, and with many it is stifled ; yet it exists, and is 
indispensable to the (internal) symmetry of consciousness." 



88 GOD-MAN. 

key, and the Pharaohs of Egypt. In other instances we 
have not sufficient data to enable us to pass anything 
like a final judgment, in opposition to so much rebutting 
evidence. The weight of testimony is all in the opposite 
direction. Ancient philosophy in its various forms, and 
especially in its purer and higher flights, sought ever 
to throw itself into the arms of the unknown God. 

Modern philosophy and science appear in many fea- 
tures atheistic, but really are not. The God-idea is so 
overwhelming that it pervades the positivist school, in- 
cluding all its phases, from Comte to Renan. As soon 
as the mind of man, cultivated or not, rejects the popu- 
lar idea of God, whatever that may be, it proceeds at 
once to manufacture another. The u Grand Etre " of 
Comte, the " Unknowable " of Spencer, are but names 
that mean God. Were Darwin and Huxley professed 
atheists — they are far from it — still the suggestions 
involved in " Development " and "Life Stuff" are inev- 
itable. Voltaire would have no Jehovah, but he wor- 
shipped the god Truth. Singular as it may appear, 
it was this same Voltaire who said, "If God did not 
exist, it would be necessary to invent one." 

France dethroned the Almighty, but rid herself of 
a deity she could not, and Reason was deified. Night 
was one of the rationalistic or speculative gods of 
Egypt,* and '" Nichts " was a god of Hegel. 

* That Egypt was not destitute of a purer Theistic Spirit- 
ualism than " Night" would indicate, may be seen in the fol- 
lowing article of religion recently discovered in a coffin of 
very ancient date : — 

" I am the Most Holy, the Creator of all that replenishes 
the earth, and of the earth itself, habitation of mortals. I am 
the Prince of the infinite ages. I am the great and mighty 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. 89 

" The materialist," as some French writer says, 
" sees God as reflected in elemental nature, the pan- 
theist as reflected in the organic and animate creation, 
the theist as reflected in man." But see him all must, 
in some way or other, or, at least, indisputable evi- 
dence of him. 

We appeal to a more general class of facts. Dr. 
Livingstone says that all the newly-discovered tribes 
in the interior of Africa " have clear ideas of the Su- 
preme God." u There is," he says, " no necessity for 
telling the most degraded of these people of the exist- 
ence of God, or of a future state, for these facts #re 
universally admitted." 

The Bakwaens scouted the idea of ever having been 
without clear conceptions on these subjects. The peo- 
ple of Tarouba speak of a deity who is the " Owner 
of Heaven." Roman Catholic Jesuits from the earliest 
dates have found deeply-rooted religious ideas in their 
first visits to the darkest corners of the earth, and the 
most desolate islands of the sea. The early belief of 
the Scandinavians, the Germans, and the Gallic tribes 
rest upon the basis of a Supreme Being, the One and 
Invisible, as firmly as those of later civilizations. Nor 
has the God-idea always been vague and indefinite. The 
Fatherhood of the deity constantly and almost every- 
where appears as a leading idea in paganism. In the Rig 

God, the Most High, shining in the midst of the careering 
stars, and of the armies which praise me over thy head. It 
is I who chastise and who judge the evil doers and the per- 
secutors of godly men. I discover and confound the liars. I 
am the All-seeing Judge and Avenger; the guardian of nrv 
laws is the land of righteousness. " 



90 GOD-MAN. 

Veda we find this petition : u May the Father of Men 
be favorable to us ! " Hesiod addresses Jupiter as 
" Father of Gods and Men." Minucius Felix well ob- 
serves that " even they who make Jove supreme, mis- 
take indeed in the name, but agree in the thing, the 
one notion of an Almighty God." 

Thus Homer addresses Zeus as the " most great 
and glorious Father." " What would life be to me," 
exclaims Marcus Aurelius, "in a world without a God 
and Providence?" Horace speaks of a " Father and 
Guardian of the human race." " He, the glorious Par- 
ent," says Seneca, " tries the good man and prepares 
him for himself." " They [men] are the children," 
says the Talmud, " of their Father who is in heaven." 

Not only the idea of Fatherhood, but God's willing- 
ness to reveal his will though priests and chosen ones 
has been well nigh universally believed. The Egyp- 
tians taught that the sacred books of Hermes were 
God-given. Thus also the Babylonians and Assyrians 
regarded the Eight Books, the Egyptians the Forty-two, 
and the Persians held in equal veneration the Zenda- 
vesta. Confucius and the Chinese appealed to the Five 
Kings, Buddhists to the Tripitaka, and the Scandina- 
vians to the Voluspa, as the voice of God. 

That God is such as to hear prayer has been so gen- 
erally believed that it may be classed among the uni- 
versal religious ideas. The view finds unquestioned 
confirmation in Chinese, Brahmin, Buddhist, and 
Grecian literature and theology. The noble prayer of 
Shun, the supplications in Rig Veda, and the devotions 
of Buddhists, are coming to be familiar to all.* Peri- 

* Appendix F. 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. 91 

cles and Demosthenes often commenced and concluded 
their speeches with prayer. Homer was ever weaving 
prayers into his epics. He significantly called them 
Jove's daughters, feeble and deformed, lame and slant- 
eyed themselves, but as mediators between heaven and 
earth, he believed they constituted irresistible agencies. 
Socrates was wont to rebuke those men of his time 
who never looked to God for assistance, but who re- 
lied, instead, upon human weakness. " He who pray- 
eth to God," said Plato, " and trusteth in his good 
favor, shall do well." 

That the Great Spirit of the early American tribes 
was regarded as a Prayer-hearer is not questioned. 
Beautifully and forcibly did this find illustration while 
Mayhew was preaching for the first time to the Nan- 
tucket Indians. "This God of whom you tell us," ex- 
claimed an Indian mother, with full heart and tearful 
eye, " is the God I called upon to save my child." * 

* It is the opinion of many of the best informed upon this 
subject, that no man has ever lived who has not prayed. Says 
President Walker, "You may find men without morality and 
without affection ; you may find, doubtless, deniers, scoffers, 
and blasphemers; but where can be found one who never 
prays? I do not think I should be very extravagant," he con- 
tinues, " were I to assert that it is as impossible to find a man 
who never prayed as to find one who never shed a tear." 

"Never yet," says Guthrie, "did traveller find a nation 
upon the earth but prayed in some form, to some god, or de- 
mon. Said Plutarch, nearly two thousand years ago (he 
was one of the best informed of pagans), " Survey the face 
of the globe, you may find whole tribes and nations without 
fortified places, without letters, and without a magistracy, 
but never one without altars and prayers." 



92 GOD-MAN. 

But we need not longer dwell upon specific cases, 
since illustrations of our position are so universal.* 

It would thus seem, upon review, that every human 
soul is more or less " aflame with God." Men have 
not been able to escape " the broodings of the Over- 
soul." The " One," "Almighty," " Incomprehensible," 
" Hidden God," " Ammon " of one portion of Egypt, 
of another portion Cneph, the " God unbegotten," 
Ormisda, the supreme deity of the ancient Parsees, 
Baal of Chaldea, Remphan of Canaan, Homerca of the 
Babylonians, Syrians, and Phoenicians, the " One God" 
of the early Chinese monarchs, who have given as clear 
recognition of the authority and personality of God as 
can be found outside the Hebrew Scriptures, the 
" Invisible " represented by Odin among the North- 
men, the u Great Spirit" of the North American In- 
dians, the " Sun God " of the ancient Peruvians, the 
" Greater than many is the One" of the Druids, the 
" Source of Light" among the Persians, the " Invisible 
Time," the " Existence without Bounds," the " Eter- 
nal Night," the "Brahm of India," the "All" of Pla- 
tonism, the "Allah "of the Mussulmans, and the " Jeho- 

* Were it necessary, it could be shown that other orthodox 
views of Jehovah were entertained. Some of his attributes-, 
even those which occasion modern thinkers much perplexity, 
are more than hinted at. Take the attribute of Trinity for 
illustration. Plato's trinity is familiar to all. Lao-tse, the 
rationalist of China, says, fc ' Reason has produced one, one 
produced two, two produced three, and three make all things." 

Unity in plurality was held as fundamental in Egyptian 
theology. The ancient symbol of the deity, in both Egypt 
and Hindostan, was a triangle with an eve in the centre; al- 
so an image with three faces. 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. 93 

vah " of the Jews, in fact, the deities of every form of 
polytheism, pantheism, or theism, show that God has 
stamped his indelible signature upon all human hearts, 
which no elevation or degradation can by any possi- 
bility efface ; that more or less perfect have been hu- 
man conceptions respecting him ; and that mankind 
will never rest from their labors and search until God 
manifests himself in some such form as can by them 
be apprehended. 



II, 

MEDIATOR. 



"TT^VERY nation," says Mackay, "that has ad- 
-■— -^ vanced beyond the most elementaVy concep- 
tions, has felt the necessity of an attempt to fill the 
chasm, real or imaginary, separating man from God." 
Hence the mediator-idea is scarcely less general than 
the God-idea. 

Without this principle of mediation all things are 
felt to be enveloped in inexplicable mystery and diffi- 
culty. How can the Supreme Being reveal himself 
and create a universe, are questions that have given 
rise to riddles innumerable, and strangely bewildering. 
Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, Cousin, and all modern 
"mediatorial" schemers have diligently sought solu- 
tions. Platonism, Gnosticism, Hindooism, modern 
German, and American pantheism, are but repeated 
efforts to give form to the formless. All image-wor- 
ship was likewise well begun. Were there nothing 
better, all men, from necessity, would to-day become 
image- worshippers. 

On a very ancient Egyptian temple at Sais we find 

94 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. 95 

the following significant and impressive inscription : 
" I am whatever is, was, and will be, No mortal has 
ever raised the veil that conceals me." Yet the Egyp- 
tians have been far from satisfied with such confession 
of religious faith. They have from almost the earliest 
historic times felt that something sacred lay beneath 
every visible object ; every object was a divine mani- 
festation, and therefore sacred. It was not inconsis- 
tent with their belief reverently to worship the bull, 
cat, and alligator. It certainly is not inconsistent that 
these objects awaken the worshipful attitude of the 
soul. 

" A black cat, stealing by us in twilight," says Hegel, 
" brings over our minds an impression as of something 
preternatural. " Let us pray," seems to be inscribed 
upon every existence. 

Search for mediations and mediators, often dissatis- 
fied and disappointed, as already stated, best explains 
the lapse of so many nations from monotheism into 
polytheism, and we may add pantheism also. All 
fire-worship, whether in the Old or New World, rests 
substantially upon the same basis, and signifies the 
same thought. Men looked about in nature for the 
purest, brightest, and most incorruptible thing to sym- 
bolize deity ; they found it, or thought they did, in fire, 
and adored it. 

The Bogles and Kelpies of Scotland, the Trolls of 
Denmark, the Nixes of early Germany, the charms 
of Fetich worship, the Life of the Egyptians, the 
Light of the Persians, the Beauty of the Greeks, 
the ancestor worship of China and New Zealand, the 
intercessor worship of the Roman Catholic, the wor- 



96 GOD-MAN. 

ship of the graves of saints among the Mohammedans, 
the adoration paid to the Rain-makers of Central 
Africa, and to the Medicine-man among the North 
American Indians, are efforts more or less perfect and 
significant to satisfy the longing hearts of mankind, 
and find something to span the mysterious and per- 
plexing gulf that is felt to intervene, dividing the finite 
from the infinite. This is the principle also which 
lies beneath all materialism, be it that of Chu-Hi of 
China, Hseckel of Germany, or Huxley of England. 
It is that which gives life and interest to every form 
of ancient or modern naturalism. Nay, more ; there 
has been no system of philosophy among men which 
does not expect a bridegroom and a bridal ceremony. 

The ultimate aim in every case is to find the some- 
thing that forms the union between the divine and 
human, thought and matter. The difference is, that 
some of the systems are furnished \vith lamps only ; 
others, in addition, have wicks and oil. This me- 
diator-idea is the basis of " man's old eternal want," 
always old and always new. It explains why the 
philosophers flocked after Paul in Athens, and all 
classes after John the Baptist in the wilderness of 
Judea. Western polytheism sought to exalt men into 
gods, and Eastern pantheism sought to identify God 
with his works. The end is the same ; the methods 
differ. 

The shepherds of Arcadia, regarding Pan as the 
representative god, listened to brook, breeze, and tree 
to hear him pipe his reed. 

All these ancient methods of mediation between 
God and man, though so various in form, may be 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. 97 

reduced to two — action and contemplation. The end 
sought is a perfect life, or a perfect ideal. If one form 
of mediation is not embraced, men will, of necessity, 
resort to another. Belief in something to mediate 
between humanity and the Universal Heart there 
must be. 

Consider one of the highest and purest types, the 
" word," the symbol employed by Plato, Philo, and 
St. John for illustration. It is deeply suggestive. 
A word stands for the invisible idea which it repre- 
sents. The classical Logos is a thoroughly generic 
term, and may include the idea of Universal Being. 
It signifies reason as well as speech. u Vach," the 
active form of Brahma, signifies " speech." " Hono- 
ver," by whom Ormuzd creates, signifies, in the Per- 
sian religion, " word." The Chinese teach that the 
world was created, not by the Infinite God, but by the 
" Primordial Reason," or " Word." 

The selection of this term seems, upon a moment's 
reflection, remarkably fitting. A thought is conceived 
in the mind, it struggles to utter itself, a word drops 
from the lips ; the thought is embodied and expressed. 
What profound philosophy in the announcement that 
men, by the words they speak, are to be judged. 
Words are the embodiment and expression of the in- 
ner self. Such was properly thought to be the divine 
manifestation. The Invisible and Infinite embodies 
himself, speaks, and his speech stands before us mani- 
festing what is the great Thought of all thoughts. 
God speaks ; worlds and all such grand things are his 
language. But humanity, as a whole, desires some- 
thing more tangible and less abstract. 

7 



98 GOD-MAN. 

a Men cannot worship," says Mackay, "a mere ab- 
straction ; they require some outward form in which to 
clothe their conceptions and enlist their sympathies." 

The entire history of the religious world has been a 
continued prayer for a living and personal mediator. 
" I need a God," said a learned pagan, " who can 
speak to me and lead me." 

What he needed, all need. The unquenchable and 
limitless desires of the soul ever point upwards to a 
supreme Restorer, whose strength is divine, but whose 
sympathies and form are human. Otherwise the span- 
less chasm can be gazed into, but crossed, it is thought, 
never. 

This accounts for the " irresistible tendency in the 
race to personify the Supreme Being." The idea of a 
God-man by no means originated with the church 
fathers, or in church councils. The birth of a God- 
man has been the expectation of all history. The 
Jewish patriarchs, as we have seen, looked for him, 
the prophets announced him, the sibyls pointed to 
him, and the poets of every nation have sung his 
praises. 

Behind all the searchings and longings of humanity 
are seen the distinct outlines of the face of a man, — 
a man in the likeness and majesty of God. The 
Jewish mystics reasonably inferred from Genesis, and 
defended the position, that God and man must bear 
the same image when expressed. Such a commen- 
tary and interpretation fit likewise all human souls. 

" Some," says Irenaeus, " call the Universal Father 
Anthrofios, man." 

" God," says Marcion, "is not without form, for he 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. 99 

is the prototype of all beauty ; to say he is formless, 
is to nullify him." Comparative theology, upon this 
point, offers from every quarter its support. The 
/iuma7?-headed and winged animals excavated from 
the ruins of Nineveh, uniting in symbol the intellect 
of man, the strength of the lion, and the rapidity of a 
majestic bird, were worshipped as representations of 
the Infinite.* 

Chosroes, who is said by the Persians to be a 
" Saviour," " among gods a perfect and eternal man," 
and among men " a conspicuous God," together with 
Mithras and Zoroaster, are the God-men of this ancient 
faith. 

Tohe was the first God-man among the Chinese, 
Confucius the second. But these, together with Gos- 
chosaun, the divine man of the ancient Parsees ; Osiris 

* "I used to contemplate for hours," says Laj^ard, "these 
mysterious emblems, and muse over their intent and history. 
What more noble form could have ushered the people into 
the temple of their gods ! What more sublime images could 
have been borrowed from nature by men who sought, un- 
aided by the light of revealed religion, to embody their con- 
ception of the wisdom, power, and ubiquity of a Supreme 
Being! They could find no better type of intellect and 
knowledge than the head of a man; of strength, than the 
body of the lion ; of rapidity of motion, than the wings of the 
bird. These winged human-headed lions were not idle crea- 
tions, the offspring of mere fancy ; their meaning was written 
upon them. They had awed and instructed races who had 
flourished three thousand years ago. Through the portals 
which they guarded, kings, priests, and warriors had borne 
sacrifices to their altars long before the wisdom of the East 
had penetrated to Greece, and had furnished its mythology 
with symbols long recognized by the Assyrian votaries." 



IOO GOD-MAN. 

and Phtha, the " apparent" or " manifest God" of the 
Egyptians ; Oannes of the Chaldeans ; Melicerta of the 
Phoenicians ; Apollo, and in fact the whole family of 
Titans, among the Greeks ; Metraton of the Cabalists ; 
Hobal, the divine man of the ancient Arabs ; Khan, 
the " son of God," in Tartary ; the mighty giant of 
" daring and valor" believed in by Celtic, Teutonic, 
Scythian, Etruscan, and Lydian mythologists, whose 
" beneficent footsteps " can benefit mortals, and whose 
"great arms" can be used against the powers of 
darkness ; also Vishnu, Buddha, Manitou, Incas, and 
Quetzalcoult, : — betray how deep are the yearnings of 
mankind, and how quick their instincts to interpret the 
slightest indications that might appear, in favor of 
what seems fundamental and universal — a Mediator. 

The most cursory glance, even, will show that the 
world has ever been standing on tiptoe, as if the 
unseen God was about to clothe himself in human 
form, and stand next moment- visibly before the 
eyes of mortals. The Simeons and Annas were not 
confined to Palestine. Every night since man left the 
Garden of Eden has he been looking up to the throb- 
bing heavens for the Star in the East. 

The Messiah-seeking Magi had faith as strong, or 
stronger, than that of the Scribes and Pharisees. 

The entire ancient dispensation, including Jewish 
and pagan, is a kind of John the Baptist. Men have 
always felt that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. 
Every great soul since Adam has said, " I am not lie, 
but there cometh one after me mightier than I, whose 
shoes I am not worthy to bear." The common people 
of all nations have ever been in readiness to flock after 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. IOI 

deliverers and Messiahs, false or true. Provided a 
man had done something, or made good some claim, 
he has had followers, and plenty of them. 

Gamaliel tells us* of Theudas and Judas of Gali- 
lee, who drew after them a much people." Simon, 
too, had many followers, who, for a time, mistook him 
for Messias. 

A hermit of India established himself on a moun- 
tain in Thibet. He was believed to be the returning 
Buddha. Hundreds of millions of people espoused 
a faith thus established.! In 1829 Marayan Powar 
became noted, when eight years of age, as a serpent- 
charmer. Soon he was believed to be divine, a " liv- 
ing God." In ten months ten thousand pilgrims came 
to him. At length he was bitten by one of his ser- 
pents, then died, and his glory departed. 
. Nor is this faith in a coming God-man a thing of 
the past. The more orthodox Hindoos are to-day 
anxiously awaiting the tenth and last visitation and 
incarnation of Vishnu. How impressively is this set 
forth in Bhagavat Dasam Askand, " When will the 
Helper come? When will the Deliverer appear?" 
The Buddhist is looking and longing for the advent 
of Maiter Buddha. 

China had been looking west for a coming One long 
before the days of Confucius. Said this great phi- 
losopher, giving expression to the prevailing thought 
of his times, " In the West must the true Saint be 
looked for and found." Dreams and predictions at 
length deepened into convictions. The Emperor 
Ming-ti, sent to India, obtained priests of Buddha, 

* Acts v. 36, 37. f Lamaism. 



I03 GOD-MAN. 

and in five centuries there were three thousand tem- 
ples dedicated to the new faith. The modern Chi- 
nese are far from being satisfied. They are expecting 
Tien-tse, a divine man, who is to inaugurate complete 
restoration. " We expect this divine man, and he is 
to come after three thousand years. The people long 
for his coming, as the dry grass longs for the clouds 
and rainbow." Such is the Chinese confession of 
faith. The same is true in the West as well as East. 

The people of the Nicaraguan Lake region are 
anxiously looking for the second coming of Monte- 
zuma. The Parsee awaits the coming of Sogiosh. 

Modern sceptical thought is included in the same 
category, and has by no means outgrown this prin- 
ciple. The Eternal Repose must, in some way, be- 
come an active and visible force. Negative gods are 
not endured. Day is preferred to night, unless when 
men wish sleep. A God-man in history, or in the 
future, in a person, or in humanity, as explainer or 
revealer, demands recognition. All must touch him 
at hem or heart. 

To elude the idea of a God-man mediator, and yet 
retain the principle, has led not a few to discover the 
divine manifestation in woman. Comte looks in this 
direction, pronouncing woman the presiding genius and 
goddess. Parker, who rejects the God-man, attempts 
to furnish a mediator in an imaginary God-woman. 
" May the Infinite Mother," he prays, " spread wide her 
arms to fold us to the universal heart." The Catho- 
lics in worshipping " Divine Mary," and the Shakers 
in adoring " Mother Ann," from whom spring all 
divine emanations, merely embody Comte's and Par- 
ker's ideal mediator. 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. 



IO3 



But all these faiths, in pagan or civilized lands, have 
been better for the believers than no faiths. These 
waiting, and expecting, and half apprehending atti- 
tudes have saved the world's heart from despair. 
They have been as one of God's educators and proph- 
ets, and great agencies in the development of human- 
ity. They have been a kind of God's Son on earth. 
It is scarcely too much to say that the thoughts of the 
coming Christ, though bearing different names, have 
presided over and ruled the thoughts and destinies 
of ages. More than this, Faith was imputed to the 
Jews for righteousness ; why not likewise, so far as 
properly exercised, at least in some instances, to these 
Gentiles ? 

It is the spirit, not the letter without the spirit, that 
maketh alive. And most certainly faith in a divine 
one has, as a matter of fact, saved individuals, nations, 
and the whole world from utter despair. 

The Karens of Burmah were for ages prevented 
from falling into the idolatrous practices of their 
Burman masters by an ancient tradition that white 
men coming from the West w T ould bring them religion 
and deliverance. Their hearts were ready for a gos- 
pel ; the Christian religion was preached to them, and 
they eagerly embraced it. Their case is far from 
being exceptional. It was this expectation which 
gave such dignity and culture to the old Hebrew 
race, otherwise despicable. It was the thought of the 
coming Messiah which fed so freely their sacred fires 
of truth and poetry. It was this which introduced 
those sentiments and longings, aspirations and expec- 
tations, which make their literature nourishing food for 



104 GOD-MAN. 

all time. And the modern Jew, just in proportion to 
his faith, has been morally correct. 

This Desire of all nations, by presenting an ideal, 
if in no other way, has developed all that is most 
interesting and most human, greatest and grandest, in 
the race of man. How much, indirectly, this principle 
has accomplished, none can tell. All feel that Carlyle 
in his Hero-worship has touched reverently upon the 
bounds of stupendous religious truths. " Hero-wor- 
ship,'' he says, " heartfelt, burning, boundless, for a 
noblest, God-like form of Man, is it not the germ of 
Christianity itself? " Mr. Emerson lives, so far as he 
lives, by faith. If his " perpetual undertone of sor- 
rowful and unappeasable doubt" be the product, not 
of an incurable scepticism which merely sports with 
themes of grandest import but of an inquiring and 
agonizing doubt, then who can say that his stainless 
life and earnest faith will not " be accounted " ? 

Must all modern Jews, including the devout, for 
an error of education or judgment, be condemned? 
There are Jews other than they of Israel. We say it 
respectfully, Emerson is a Brahmin and a Jew. He 
seems to have been born two thousand years ago in 
both India and Palestine. " There is no man," he says, 
" there hath never been. The intellect still asks that a 
man may be born. The flame of life flickers feebly in 
human breasts. We demand of men a richness and 
universality we do not find. Great men do not content 
us. It is their solitude, not their force, that makes 
them conspicuous. There is somewhat indigent and 
tedious about them. They are poorly tied to one 
thought. If they are prophets, they are egotists ; if 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. IO5 

polite and various, they are shallow. How tardily 
men arrive at any result? . . . Thus a man lasts 
but a very little while, for his monomania [that he 
has the secret of the universe] lasts but a very little 
while. It is so with every book and person ; and yet 
— and yet — we do not take up a new book, or meet 
a new man, without a pulse-beat of expectation. And 
this invincible hope of a more adequate interpreter is 
the sure prediction of his advent." O, bold searcher, 
whom you seek, him would we declare unto you. 

Along with its doubters the world has always also 
had, and always will have, its " invisible church," its 
divine commonwealth of souls and saints united in the 
common idea of a Coming One. Who they are we 
may not be able to distinguish. 

When one of our early missionaries preached Christ 
for the first time to a western tribe of Indians, and had 
described what are the experiences of a Christian faith, 
he was confronted by an aged slave who had never 
heard of Christ, or any divine supernatural being save 
the Great Spirit, with the confession, " The Saving 
One is mine, and these have been my experiences for 
many years." 

11 Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold," 
and " there shall be one fold and one shepherd," is 
fact and prophecy. Sooner or later the " consolation 
of Israel " and the consolation of the Brahmin and 
Buddhist, the Persian and Egyptian, the Goth and 
Aboriginal Indian, must be one and the same. In the 
mean time, however rigidly Christians may cling to the 
correct and scriptural form of truth, they can afford to 
be liberal in their estimates of the hearts of unques- 



I06 GOD-MAN. 

tionably good men. God knows many things that we 
do not.* 

It is for the present a triumph grand enough for the 
Christian truth that the perfect ideal and divine man 
before Plato, and since Plato, has held the world as 
by fascination. Men may reject Jesus, but they will 
continue to seek the Christ. This true soul, this Pro- 
metheus, this ruler of nations, sinless and infinite, a 
God and a man, is an established fact. What multi- 
tudes have risen up and gone out to meet him ! Did 
men truly believe that a God-man had really walked 
the earth, all save earth- or wrath-bound souls would 
ask nothing more. What he said would be believed 
and sufficient. All things else may fade, but the in- 
tense and vivid idea of God and man somehow, and in 
some form, made one, will be among the last ideas to 
be abandoned by the race. 

These universal thoughts are no accidents, but the 
natural forecast of searching hearts. They are not 
man's, but humanity's invention. They show a feeling 
after and the catching of glimpses of exalting and stu- 
pendous truths. They are attempts at making a cradle 

* We were pleased to hear Mr. Tyler argue, at the late 
Edinburgh meeting of the British Association, a more rever- 
ent consideration of savage notions. He claimed that it was 
shallow to suppose they were ridiculous; that, so far as they 
went, they were fair attempts on the part of ignorant people 
to explain the mystery of the universe ; that what was called 
superstition by the civilized savant was the solemn child-like 
belief of the savage philosopher. He advocated strongly 
the support of missionary enterprise as one of the best 
means of advancing our knowledge of this obscure depart- 
ment of science. 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. IO7 

for the Infant of Days. They are the shadows of 
heavenly things, the notable harbingers and adum- 
brations of eternal and immutable thoughts. They 
constitute a partial explanation of the Cypher of God's 
Universe. These dreams and representations, though 
more or less deformed, do answer promptly to our 
human touch. They seem to respond with the pulse 
of a life like our own. Have not these beating and 
throbbing souls of men been trying to give birth to a 
reality, and not a dream ? If men have dreamed thus 
grandly, will not God, when the morning dawns, say 
to humanity, Thy dream is truth, and shall be realized? 



III. 

INCARNATION, 



FOLLOWING this universal belief in a Mediator 
appears an effort in religious thought to answer 
the question, How can one be, at the same time, hu- 
man and divine? for such it has been felt must be the 
true Mediator. 

The reasoning among all nations and in all ages 
seems to have been nearly the same, and a like conclu- 
sion appears to have been reached : if a being can be 
God-begotten and woman-born, he can answer the con- 
ditions required, and be, at the same time, human and 
divine. These thoughts, in the development of theo- 
logical opinions, ripened into conviction, and the dog- 
ma of incarnation, as found in the world's religions, 
took this form as the most natural, and as being cer- 
tainly the least difficult solution of the most singular 
and perplexing of religious problems. 

The idea of Immaculate Conception has not, there- 
fore, been arbitrarily assumed, but was based upon an 
absolute as well as dogmatic necessity — that of at- 
tempting to account for the sinless origin of a sinless 

1 08 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. IO9 

person. This was also the most natural way, and 
rationally and philosophically the only way, of form- 
ing what all men desire — a typical union between 
God and man, and a real union between the finite and 
infinite. It is also the only way known in which can 
be* obtained a glance at ideal humanity. It renders 
possible the still greater difficulty — the union of a di- 
vine and human consciousness in the same person. It 
should not, therefore, excite surprise that the divine 
men of all nations have been represented as born of 
virgin mothers. Though involving an apparent con- 
tradiction, is it not the most plausible conclusion that 
a God-man must be God and woman-born ? 

" Of mother's love and maiden purity, 
Of high and low, celestial with terrene."* 

It is in view of considerations like the above that we 
are very far from being disposed to enter into contro- 
versy with modern radicals when they assert that every 
religion has had its Christs, and that history is full of 
incarnations. This is unquestionably true. It is the 
very fact we, too, would establish. Were it otherwise, 
the correctness of the principle of incarnation might 
justly be questioned. Poor hope of success has any 
man, or body of men, who rise up at this late day to 
overthrow, without presenting a substitute alike in 
kind, the opinions which have ruled the world for six 
thousand years ! Majorities are right as well as wrong. 
Majorities are usually, in their deeper convictions, but 
the reflection of divine will and thought. When, "then, 
this wonderful Epiphany ever presents itself as the 

* Wordsworth. 



IIO GOD-MAN. 

engrossing theme of piety and inspiration ; when, as 
Mr. Weiss rightly remarks, " human struggle has ever 
been a divine struggle towards an incarnation ; " when 
idolatrous art, in its various and best forms, is but an 
attempt to incarnate deity and give birth, upon canvas 
or in marble, to a Godrman ; when the idea, though 
often caricatured among pagans, discolored by sensu- 
ality, invested with superstitions, and deformed through 
passion, has nevertheless remained, ready, and in wait- 
ing, like all great truths, for a perfect realization ; when 
through this gateway of incarnation, left half ajar in 
the thoughts of men, has been found so easy access 
into that temple in which the true God " is manifested 
in the flesh, brought nigh, to be handled with the hands 
and seen with the eyes," that not only the heathen, but 
all civilized nations, have been prying at it, or passing 
throught it ; when the philosophy or the pantheism of 
Hegel, — if it be pantheism, — allows that God may 
incarnate himself in man, nay, that he does it in all 
men ; when not only this great man's system, but like- 
wise all the higher types of modern philosophy, have 
compromised with this religious dogma, their boasted 
independence, speaking with great freedom of " ab- 
stract religions " and of " generic incarnations ; " when 
we discover that the clearest types of incarnation have 
always taken the place of the less perfect, as Brahma, 
in the East, gives place to Vishnu, and in the West, 
Huitzilopotchli to Quetzalcoalt ; and when it is found 
that some of these religious fictions have been so pure 
and natural, that were they to find fulfilment in a reali- 
ty, they would in most respects correspond to it ; nay, 
when we consider all these facts, is there left any room 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. Ill 

to doubt what have been the thoughts of men upon this 
subject ever since they felt the need of redemption and of 
a Redeemer ? Is it an object of wonder that Eve, and 
every woman of the race for four thousand years, did 
hope to be the chosen Mary, and bear a divine Son ? 
Will not God forgive the desire, and some time, per- 
haps, do more — relieve the disappointment, and place 
upon the bosom of some human mother a Son of God ? 



IV. 

SACRIFICE, 



THE thoughts of men, as seen in the religious sys- 
tems already enumerated, do not rest satisfied 
with the birth and life of a Mediator, but ask and at- 
tempt to anwser the question, by what means can the 
God-man unite the entire race with the Infinite One? 
This is less perplexing than some other religious in- 
quiries ; none, however, are more solemn. The solem- 
nity arises from the attending conviction that the means 
employed must be extreme — blood and death. 

This idea of sacrifice is so much a part of human 
nature, that ancient and modern speculative thought 
has made no effort to outgrow it. 

" The pantheistic notion of creation," says Mackay, 
" is essentially that of sacrifice. God, when descend- 
ing to the limits of time and space, becomes incor- 
porated in the world, identifies himself with perishable 
nature, thus, by a sort of self-sacrifice, originating uni- 
versal life." The same, essentially, is true of all no- 
tions of creation. 

It is also a suggestive and beautiful conception of 

112 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. 1 13 

the old Persian that the mission of the u express image 
of the eternal/' Ahura Mazda, was to release, " by a 
final sacrifice, the soul of nature from her perishable 
frame, that she might commence a brighter and purer 
existence." 

Indeed, the principle is so clear that it may be seen 
in all human relations. Man, by the simple virtue of 
being above material nature, comes in contact with no 
form of matter which does not cost him a sacrifice. 
He bears about his physical body at great spiritual 
loss and hinderance. Such, precisely, is the basis of 
the law of atonement. 

Atonement, in the abstract, is the reconciliation be- 
tween higher and lower, grosser and better natures. 
An atonement must lie at the foundation of every act 
in a universe where all are not equals in power and 
goodness. Recognizing this truth, it is not strange that 
the common sense of the race has always appealed to 
sacrifice as a solution of its difficulties. 

Again, sacrifice and atonenent seek to span not only 
the natural distance between God and man, but also the 
wider gulf of moral distances and disparities. While it 
is true, on natural grounds, that u the religious mind 
is ever striving to unite itself with God," yet it is pre- 
eminently this conscious moral distance between God 
and man which has occasioned those appalling cries 
of anguish, and that distressing hunger whose contem- 
plation makes the heart sick. The wailings of human- 
ity are full of conviction that some great calamity has 
befallen the race, and separated it a long distance from 
the divine. There are dirges everywhere of houseless 
and homeless wayfarers. 



114 GOD-MAN. 

The knowledge has always existed that men ought 
to do right, that they have done wrong, and that they 
must be judged. In these thoughts has been anguish 
enough for one world. All modern glosses thrown 
over sin, representing it as an appearance of evil mere- 
ly, have never touched the root difficulty, or in the least 
degree eradicated the universal conviction and self-con- 
demnation. Men always have felt and always will feel 
that sin is something besides natural perspiration, and 
that it is so appalling that nothing trifling will meet 
the requirements. All thinking men who can justly 
lay claim to a philosophical mind agree with Plato, 
that upon natural grounds " it is impossible for the 
impure to approach the holy and perfect." 

More than this : that the race has been " implicated 
in some aboriginal calamity," which has formed in 
part this impassable gulf, strangely, and yet strongly, 
attaches itself to human thought. The fact is, that the 
race finds itself involved in these perplexities, and 
dares not, without interventions, look to God. Belief 
in any deity, and propitiatory sacrifices, are concomi- 
tants. That pagan nations have been as ready to erect 
altars and offer sacrifices as to perform the most con- 
genial service requires something besides surface and 
chance explanations. To the savage the winds and 
nights are thronged with giant spirits, and he ordains 
his priests, and asks them to interfere. Priests are not 
religion-makers ; they themselves are people-made. The 
principle is the same which governs the more enlight- 
ened, who see in good men, or in a God-man, the one 
who can u restore and preserve the equipoise which 
universal consciousness affirms to have been disturbed 
or lost." 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. II5 

Sacrifice is also an expression of the right of the 
Infinite Ruler to inflict punishment. Human nature 
loves the confessional, and will make to the proper 
authority its acknowledgment. It is this desire to 
confess and to appease the divine displeasure for sins 
committed which undoubtedly has led to the more 
frightful forms of sacrifice. Man took the most beau- 
tiful flowers of the earth and the richest fruits of the 
field, and offered them ; but these were felt to be, not 
enough. 

a Sacrificial atonement, especially atonement by 
blood," says Mackay, " has ever been the great reli- 
gious idea." It is one of the forms of religious cultus, 
and is, in fact, co-extensive w 7 ith religion itself. It should 
not, therefore, surprise us to find expiatory rites re- 
corded in the oldest books of the Hebrew Scriptures, 
or to meet with them at the earliest dates to which 
heathen records conduct us. Among barbarous na- 
tions, from India to Britain, sacrificial atonement pre- 
vailed.* 

* Lucretius is admirable authority, and he gives us a full 
and satisfactory statement upon this point. " If we pursue 
our inquiries through the accounts left us by the Greek and 
Roman writers of the barbarous nations with which they 
were acquainted from India to Britain," says an eminent wri- 
ter, "we shall find the same notions and similar practices of 
sacrificial atonement. From the most popular portion of our 
own literature, our narratives of voyages and travels, every 
one, probably, who reads at all, will be able to find for him- 
self abundant proof that the notion has been as permanent 
as it is universal. It shows itself among the various tribes 
of Africa, the islanders of the South Seas, and even that most 
peculiar race, the natives of Australia, either in the shape of 
some offering or some mutilation of the person," 



Il6 GOD-MAN. 

Sacrificial emblems appear also throughout Egyp- 
tian history and religion. The priests branded the 
bull to be slaughtered with a seal bearing this signifi- 
cant representation : a man kneeling, with his hands 
bound behind him, and a drawn sword held at his 
throat. There was an ancient custom in Phrygia of 
the same import. When a man desired to be purified, 
the priests placed him in a pit, covered with a plat- 
form in which holes were perforated. Upon this was 
placed an animal to be slain, the blood of which, flow- 
ing down upon the man, sprinkled and cleansed him. 

In China there are fifteen hundred and sixty temples 
dedicated to Confucius, upon whose altars are yearly 
offered sixty thousand animals. 

The sacred fires and bloody sacrifices of ancient 
Damascus are confirmatory. 

For the purpose of proving their devotion to the Great 
Spirit and securing his favor, some of the tribes of the 
North American Indians underwent the most excruci- 
ating tortures and agonies, mutilating themselves until 
completely besmeared with blood, as did the priests of 
Baal in Elijah's time. All these things, any one who 
is acquainted with human nature would expect. 

Nor will it surprise any philosopher that humanity 
has also been fearfully lavish of its own blood. Dr. 
Magee, after extensive canvassing, states that human 
sacrifices have been offered by every people excepting 
the Jews. We doubt if the exception be true of the 
Jews, even. Clearer exceptions are the Chinese and 
Peruvians, though the fact is also here questioned. 
The Philistines, the Moabites, the Ammonites, the 
Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the Mauritanians, and 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. Il7 

all adherents of the gross naturalism of Asia Minor, 
built their altars, and upon them sacrificed their kin- 
dred. 

Spreading over the vast territory from the northern 

confines of the Roman empire to the North Sea, and 
from the Atlantic to Asia, were peoples who enter- 
tained the same essential religious ideas. Rude black 
stones of immense size are found to-day scattered over 
all these portions of Europe. Alas ! they, too, are 
monuments of the perplexing and mysterious thoughts 
which dwelt in the minds of these people. In the 
dark oak forests their altars of blood received men, 
women, and children, as the fearful and frightful ex- 
pression of a deep conviction that it is guilt which 
separates God from man, and that, somehow, in blood 
must the restoration be effected. The ancient Persians, 
the ancient Arabians, the people of Tartary, and of New 
Zealand, performed similar rites of human sacrifice. 

Unnumbered victims have perished upon the tem- 
ple-mounds, whose ruins are spread over the central 
and western portions of America. Recall again those 
frightful scenes in Mexico. 

Ashanta, in Western Africa, numbering three mil- 
lion inhabitants, together with Dahomey, of nearly the 
same number, also practise the dreadful rites of human 
sacrifice. Three thousand victims in the former coun- 
try have been offered at the death, not of a king, but 
of a king's mother. What a river of blood has ever 
been flowing through the temples of heathen idolatry ! 

We pause. The heart grows faint and sick in its 
thought of the distress and agonies of the one offered, 
and equally of the one making offering. 



Il8 GOD-MAN. 

The sufferings have not all been on the part of the 
slain. The moans of the victims have been more than 
doubled by those of the troubled souls unsheathing 
the knife and kindling the fire. Sacrificial offerings 
speak something besides bloodthirstiness. These reli- 
gious devotees were not, in the majority of instances, 
Caligulas and Neros, more than are we. Rites of 
sacrifice were originally instituted, not from caprice, 
but from the profoundest sense of religious conviction — 
the conviction that without the shedding of blood there 
could be no remission. They spring from " divine in- 
stigations acting through human instincts and voices." * 

Moloch and Juggernaut were not the products of 
cruelty of heart, but of irresistible instinct. The Hin- 
doo mother throws her first-born into the sullen stream 
not without keenest anguish; around that child are 
entwined all the fondness of a mother's devotion and 
love. 

May not these altars of paganism, this flow of hu- 
man blood, these appalling sacrifices be unconscious 
prophecies? And though they have not satisfied the 
world, may they not have relieved it from despair ?f 
Solemn and significant it is to see a sinful man go 
forth with a lamb for sacrifice. Appalling is it to see 
hands in sacrifice besmeared with human blood. But 
is there not a beautiful thought entwined in the wreath 
of smoke ascending heavenward, bearing the savor of 

* Bushnell. 

f Says Maurice, correctly, in speaking of the Romans, 
" To abolish human sacrifices is good; but a blank will be 
left in the nations even by the loss of such practices as these, 
which must be filled up, or we shall impoverish those whom 
we seek to reform." 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. II9 

the choicest of the flock, expressing the hospitality of 
man towards God ? In it we see " worshipful homage." 
No wonder that God was pleased with Abel's offering, 
and that Abel felt God's approval. May not all this 
have been the involuntary and constitutional tendency 
of the race towards Calvary — God's way of preparing 
the heart for Christ? If so, will he not make some 
provision ? 

But we may go a step farther. Why is it not con- 
sistent that, in its struggling, the human soul has some- 
times looked to the death of its divine man for relief? 
" The notion of a suffering deity was wide-spread, ,, 
says Mackay, " extending from India westward, in- 
cluding Scythians, Asians, and Arabians." It was 
also held by Hebrews and pagans, that chiefs and 
princes, by undergoing a voluntary death, might in 
some way, benefit the race. They were regarded as 
" sublime acts of sacrificial self-devotion for the public 
good." 

At certain times Ormuzd and Ahriman, the media- 
tors among the Persians, offered sacrifices to the Infi- 
nite and Invisible, whereupon all things were said to 
be fulfilled.' In fine, the well nigh universal conviction 
is, that a mediator, real or ideal, must at some time be 
sacrificed. The good man and the cross, how can 
they in this world ever be separated? Herein is felt to 
be ground for hope. A deeper faith in a divine atone- 
ment would perhaps have sheathed long ago and 
everywhere the sacrificial knife. But until this faith 
dawns, shall the world be left absolutely faithless ? In- 
contestable is the assertion that from the Fall to the Ad- 
vent, there was universal expectation of some mighty 



120 GOD-MAN. 

victim of some Calvary. But there was lack of data, 
and of faith sufficient to save from alarm. Viewed in 
this light, there is a beautiful law underlying the vica- 
rious atonement which in practical life all admire, 
though in the divine government some condemn. 

Fabius, when sentenced by the dictator, was pardoned 
because the Roman people implored it for their sakes. 
Who objects ? May it not be true that the Great Law- 
giver has good and sufficient reasons for exercising the 
pardoning prerogative upon the ground of sacrifice ? 

Does it not half dawn upon us, in serious moments, 
that, from an unexplained fitness or necessity, this may 
be, or, perhaps, must be, God's method ? It seems hard, 
but are there not compensations ? May not forgiveness, 
based upon sacrifice, be better for all concerned than 
universal and indiscriminate pardon? What possible 
objection can there be when the sacrifice involves the 
world's God-man ? Or who can tell if these human 
thoughts of mediator, atonement, and sacrifice are not 
waifs thrown upon the spiritual shores of humanity by 
the unspent and majestic tides which swell and flow 
forever in the divine consciousness ? 



V. 



AUTHORITY OF ESSENTIAL THE- 
OLOGY. 



WE have now pointed out those conclusions of 
Comparative Religion, which have special bear- 
ing upon our general subject ; these, with other points 
of agreement, are properly termed Essential Theology. 
There is embodied in this term nothing more or less 
than the claim that the God-idea, together with the 
idea of Mediator, Incarnation, and Sacrifice, belongs 
to the true theology of humanity, whatever that the- 
ology may be, or wherever discovered. We do not 
see how any wise man can assert that this essential 
theology is not essentially true. Can one man's per- 
sonal authority be sufficient to overthrow or have much 
weight against universal authority? 

While entering somewhat into the details of this 
topic, it is interesting to note, respecting it, the attitude 
of the disciples and early church fathers ; and all the 
more interesting because they seem to have been far 
more liberal in their admissions than many in modern 
times. We cannot quite overlook the narrowness 

121 



122 GOD-MAN. 

which led the King of Prussia to expel Christian 
Wolff from Halle, on penalty of death if he returned, 
for eulogizing the ethical teachings of Confucius. 

Believers during the late conflicts hetween truth and 
error have too often been not a little troubled when scep- 
tics have boldly asserted, that ideas of mediator, incar- 
nation, and sacrifice are old as the race, and that Chris- 
tian dogmas based upon these and kindred subjects have 
no better or different foundation than those of all other 
paganisms, and that Christian nations and symbols are, 
at best, but second-hand. The method of many in meet- 
ing such like assertions has been to deny the correctness 
of all heathen conceptions. In this there have been sad 
mistakes ; much more is lost by this course than gained. 

The disciples nowhere represent that Jesus claimed 
that all he said was new. He often referred to and re- 
stored the law of Moses. The grand purpose of his mis- 
sion was anything save an effort to demonstrate that he 
could be startling and original. He was to fulfil, rather 
than originate. He was not above noticing the shadow 
of the daisy at his feet. Much more did he respect and 
appeal to the religious sentiment in man. The marvel 
with his teachings is, that he gave principles so compre- 
hensive that they embrace everything ever spoken or 
dreamed of. He expressed with supreme authority the 
thoughts of humanity. Son of man, indeed ! 

In these respects his gospel remains to this day 
novel, unexplained, and on natural grounds inexplica- 
ble ; but in all this there is no disrespect shown hu- 
man thought and opinion. 

Paul admitted that the chief advantage the Jew had 
over the Gentile was not in the natural law of con- 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. I 23 

science, but in the possession of the written oracles of 
God.* John and Paul both employed thoughts and 
expressions which were common in pagan literature. 
Paul quotes from a Cretan philosopher, and an Attic 
comedian, and doubtless from certain lyrical melodies 
besides.! That the pre-Christian era of the world was 

* " For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by 
nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the 
law, are a law unto themselves; which show the work of the 
law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing wit- 
ness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else ex- 
cusing one another; because that which may be known of 
God is manifest in them ; for God hath showed it unto them. 
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world 
are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are 
made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are 
without excuse ; because that when they knew God, they 
glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became 
vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was dark- 
ened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 
and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an im- 
age made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four- 
footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave 
them up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts, 
to dishonor their own bodies between themselves; who 
changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and 
served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed 
forever." Rom. ii. 14, 15, 19-25. 

t The quotation in Acts xxii. 17 is from the following of 
Aratus Phcenomenes : — 

"With Jove [Zeus] we must begin, nor from him rove ; 
Him always praise; for all is full of Jove ! 
He fills all places where mankind resort, 
The wide-spread sea, with every sheltering port. 
Jove's presence fills all space, upholds this ball; 



1 24 GOD-MAN. 

open to divine communings, Jesus and his disciples 
would thus seem to confirm by gathering up, in some 
instances, those threads of truth that had been running 
through the web of the world's thought and history, 
and weaving them into a texture not yet displaced. 

The apologists also, especially the Greek, — the Latin 
fathers, as a rule, were far less liberal, — frequently re- 
ferred to the conscience of intelligent heathen as fully 
competent to decide moral and religious questions. 
They often quoted from them in confirmation of gos- 
pel truth ; and their opponents more than once felt the 
force of this u arrow feathered from their own wing/' 

u Every man," says Justin Martyr, " by the germ of 
the divine Word which is in him, sees a part of the 
truth which is harmonious with himself. Clement 
said that Plato " touched the very gates of truth." * 

All need his aid; his power sustains us all; 
For we his offspring are, and he in love 
Points out to man his labor from above, 
Where signs unerring show where best the soil 
By well-timed culture shall repay our toil." 

The quotation in 1 Cor. xv. 32, is a Greek Iambic, either 
from Menander or Euripides. 

In Titus i. 12, Paul quotes from Epimenides, one of the 
seven wise men of Greece. 

* In his Stromata, Clement employs the following remarka- 
ble language : " Indeed, before the coming of the Lord, phi- 
losophy was needful to the Greeks, for the reformation of their 
lives ; and even now it is an aid to piety, supplying, as it does, 
some rudimentary teaching for those who subsequently may 
receive the faith upon conviction. For God is, indeed, the 
cause of all good things, of some pre-eminently and directly, 
as of the Old and New Testaments; of others indirectly, by 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. I 25 

Tertulliaii, speaking of Seneca, says, u He utters 
the testimony of a mind naturally Christian." Ad- 
dressing the pagan soul, he says, "Thou art not, that 
I know, Christian by nature ; thou canst not be born 
Christian ; thou must become such. Nevertheless, 
Christians invoke thy testimony." He then significant- 
ly asks, " Who taught the souls of common people 
these truths?" 

In condemnation of those who did not live up to the 
light they have, he argues thus : " Each soul of its 
own accord proclaims aloud these truths, which Chris- 
tians are not permitted even to whisper. Thus every 
soul may be called both a culprit and a witness ; a 
culprit as to error, a witness as to truth. 

" And in the day of judgment it shall- stand before 
the bar of God, having nothing to say to the charge, 
4 Thou didst preach God, and didst not seek him ; thou 
didst detest demons, and yet didst worship them ; thou 
didst appeal to the judgment of God, whilst thou didst 
not believe in his being ; thou didst anticipate punish- 
ment in a world below, but didst take no heed against 
it ; thou didst savor of the name of Christ, and yet 
didst persecute Christians.' " 

Minucius Felix, impressed with the harmony be- 
tween many of the teachings of ancient philosophers 

means of reason and argument, as philosophy, which he 
probably gave to the Greeks before the Lord himself came, 
in order to call them also to his service. For philosophy 
acted the part of a schoolmaster to the Greeks, as the law of 
Moses did to the Jews, for the purpose of bringing men to 
Christ, and thus preparing the way for such as were to be 
advanced by him to perfection." 



126 GOD-MAN. 

and the gospel, affirmed that " either the Christians 
now are philosophers, or the philosophers of old were 
thus far Christians. " 

Origen attributed the rapid spread of the gospel in 
part to the " harmony of its doctrines " with the " sen- 
timents of natural conscience." Cyprian based the 
condemnation of the Gentiles upon the fact that they 
u will not confess what they cannot but know." 

'■ How canyon, who pretend to admire the precepts of 
your philosophers and teachers," asked Arnobius of the 
pagans, u blame our Jesus for uttering the same things?" 

Thus, in various ways, (he church fathers and apolo- 
gists have cheerfully admitted that the children's meat 
had, in some instances, been given to u dogs." Their 
minds were unprejudiced and generous enough to ad- 
mit that " an unconscious Christianity" had pervaded 
the sentiments of many who objected to their faith. 
Though dark and obscure spots tarnished the pa- 
gan character, still aspirations to a higher life were 
not altogether denied them. Much there was which is 
tinsel and tinkling in heathen speculations ; still a no- 
bler music was heard distinctly vibrating on the ear 
of the early church. Certainly we of the nineteenth 
century cannot afford, in the spirit of generosity, to be 
outdone by those of the first. 

Religious truths, lofty and often Christian-like, falling 
from the lips of devout heathen, ought to teach us that 
there is in the world a gospel hoary with antiquity. 
a These divine dogmas," says Sir William Jones, •'"' run 
like silver threadings through the systems of the most 
ancient nations." 

The doctrine of miracles, the end of the world, the 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. I 2/ 

resurrection and final judgment,* 5 were not entirely 
new when Christianity dawned upon the nations. 

The natural corruption of the race is spoken of by 
Thucydides, Polybius, Horace, and Tacitus, in terms 
nearly, if not quite, as explicit as those employed by 
Paul. u There is no one of us without faults/' says Sen- 
eca. " He who calls himself innocent does so with 
reference to a witness, and not to his own conscience." 

It is also true that Thales, Zeno, Pythagoras, Plato, 
Anaximenes, Empedocles, Indian Seers, and Persian 
Magi, taught the immortality of the soul no less clearly 
and forcibly than the Jewish patriarchs and prophets. 
Plow long this opinion had held possession of the race 
it is difficult to say ; it was old in the days of Plato. 
He says in Timasus, " We ought always to believe 
those ancient and sacred words which declare the soul 
to be im mortal. " 

The place of retribution, as represented in Homer's 
time, — a representation old when he was born, — is 
where " mortals live again, or rather live on, and live 
forever, retaining the same character and habits as in 
this life." In some of the most ancient sacred books 
of the Egyptians are accounts of a future life and final 
judgment, in which the deceased is represented as 
urging in his own behalf these considerations : u I 
have made to the gods the offerings that were their due. 
I have given food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, 
and clothes to the izaked." \ 

This doctrine seems, indeed, to pervade pagan life and 
thought. It shows itself in certain current maledictory 
expressions among the, ancient Greeks. " May the 

* Rom. ii. 14. f Comp. Matt. xxv. 31-46. 



I2S GOD-MAN. 

earth lie heavy upon him \" " May his ashes be tor- 
mented in the shades below ! " " Bruise my form," 
exclaimed Anaxarchus, to his tormentors ; " me ye 
cannot bruise." 

The theory of transmigration of souls is likewise con- 
firmatory. The Sheol of the Hebrews, the Amenthes 
of the Egyptians, Hades of the Greeks, Patala of the 
Hindoos, and Dowzauk of the Persians, point directly 
to immortality for their basis. 

The food placed by the graves of the American In- 
dians, the bow and arrow, tomahawk and hunting-knife, 
deer-skin and moccasons, buried with the brave, are to 
be used in Hawahneu, the other hunting-ground. The 
Milky Way was to the Winnebagoes the " Road of the 
Dead." 

The Gauls lent money in this world upon bills pay- 
able in the next. " Bury me on my shield," said Leoni- 
das. " I will enter even Hades as a Lacedaemonian." 

A Fejee, taking a weapon from the grave of a friend, 
remarked to a missionary, " The ghost of this club 
has gone with him." It was an early custom among 
the Arabs to tie the finest camel of the owner by his 
grave, that supplies might be borne into the other land. 
Nor are the Chinese unmindful of their dead ; annually 
they burn various garments and utensils for the use of 
those w 7 ho have " gone before." 

It suggests pleasant thoughts, that custom of Green- 
landers. When a child dies, they bury a dog with him, 
as a guide. Over Gothard to Paradise with such a 
companion he will safely go. 

We may add also that the day of judgment, as rep- 
resented by the Cataclvsm of the Aztec, the Yugs of 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. 1 29 

the Hindoo, the Great Resurrection of the Persian, the 
" final conflagration " of the Stoic, and the Ragnarokur 
of the Scandinavian, seems to be the expression of one 
of the root-truths in the heart of humanity. 

Does there not appear to be good evidence in all 
this for the supposition that there has been constant 
intercourse between God and the listeners of all ages 
and countries? Perhaps the Gospel has, by some, 
been preached everywhere since the days of Abel.* 

In many instances it is doubtless true that pagan 
notions were not clearly defined, and often they had 
no seeming practical effect. They were sometimes 
only the dimmest visions of the night ; an awakening, 
it is possible, from an earlier, though not an absolutely 
primeval condition, into a partial view and witness of 
the truth. 

When the souls of men thus rise up and prove their 
possession of vast resources, then the unconscious king- 
dom of truth begins to dawn upon them. The masses 
say u yes," then pause ; they next become idolaters, 
then idlers. But not so with all. Some there are 
among the heathen who have " shown themselves to 
be nobler, loftier, holier, freer from vanity, freer from 
meanness, freer from special pleadings, freer from 
falsehood, more spiritual, more reasonable, on some 

* "For he is not a Jew which is one outwardly; neither 
is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh. But he 
is a Jew which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that 
of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise 
is not of men, but of God." — Rom. ii. 28, 29. 

" Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have be- 
lieved." — John xx. 29. 

9 



130 



GOD-MAN. 



points even more enlightened, " than some among our- 
selves. These great and true souls longed after God, 
and groped among ancient opinions, existing philos- 
ophies, and their own souls, to find him, as confined 
flowers instinctively seek the sun. 

Thomas Aquinas and John Fletcher were not extrav- 
agant in saying that many of these pagans had an 
"implicit faith." They had truth enough and light 
enough, at all events, to be conscious of a better way ; 
enough " to overcome the allurements of the visible 
and the terrors of the invisible world ; " and were mar- 
tyrs for the truth they could not fully comprehend. 

Men should never scoff at these noble seekers after 
God and his truth ; intelligent men will not. They 
had their mission, and perhaps fulfilled it better than 
some of those upon whom the ends of the earth have 
come. 

We might also inquire whether there be evidence 
that the Holy Ghost has been idle among all people 
save the Jews and nominal Christians. What nation, 
or individual, has been exempted from the command, 
" Seek ye my face " ? Why insist that Christianity is, 
in every respect, odd and unique? Why not admit 
that the lofty spiritualism which characterizes some 
portions of the Brahminical books, the moral devotion 
of the Zendavesta, the Law of the Soul's Progress of 
Buddhism, and the precepts of the Five Volumes of 
China, together with every right movement among 
men, are products of the Holy Spirit? 

The pagan Bibles may be, in a sense, God's word, 
at least so far as they are not the source, but the prod- 
uct of belief — the expression of faith and conviction. 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. 131 

Dr. Adam Clarke does not hesitate to affirm that 
Virgil's famous 

"Ultima cumaei venit jam carminis astas" 

was written " apparently under the inspiration of 
God." 

" There was a religion," Lessing truthfully remarks, 
" ere there was a Bible." " All history is an inar- 
ticulate Bible." All human souls are parts of God's 
work. He is no less the God of Adam than of Abra- 
ham. Adam was before Abraham. All men have 
faculties which depend upon no human laws of mind 
or matter. The race has never been without its invis- 
ible teachers, or without God. Souls are receptive 
and reflective — clay as well as gods. Would it not be 
strange if they had never reflected beams of divine 
truth, or received impressions from agencies ever pres- 
ent and active? God has, doubtless, well-arranged 
evidence that he has spoken to all ; it is upon this 
ground that none are exempt from his law, and that 
all are without excuse. 

Hooker gives expression to a truthful and generous 
sentiment respecting pagans, in saying that " their 
revelation was of a nature which was confirmed, 
strengthened, and extended, but not superseded, by the 
written law of God." May we not suppose that the 
Infinite Spirit has inspired in all true hearts " groan- 
ings which cannot be uttered," and that the groping 
hand has touched at least the " hem of his garment " ? 

The supposed antithesis between natural and re- 
vealed religion ought not for a moment to be admitted. 
The difference is not essential, but purely one of words 



132 



GOD-MAN. 



and degree. " For the invisible things of him from 
the creation of the world are clearly seen, being under- 
stood by the things that are made." God tries no 
experiments. Truths in one of his kingdoms never 
cancel those of another. Truth seen once is seen 
everywhere, and is always seen as truth. Yes, it ill 
becomes a Christian to view with suspicion the noble 
utterances of those virtuous and pure minds of pagan- 
ism. We should receive them rather with gratitude 
as testimonies to divine truth, the gushing out, not of 
" naturalism," but of the " Christianity of Nature." 
Modern Christianity, like early Christianity, should not 
attempt to destroy these ideas, but try to fulfil, purify, 
and exalt them, and fear not to build from these ruins, 
as the Christians of Rome built their places of worship 
from the marble of heathen temples which had been 
levelled by barbarian vandalism. 

And on the other hand, the unbeliever who tries to 
impeach the Scriptures, because heathen have ap- 
proached them, is far from being wise, and is no 
philosopher. Had they not been approached by all 
pure minds since Adam, then we might justly impeach 
and set them aside. The soul's testimony to the truth 
of religion is its overwhelming argument and immova- 
ble support. No great religious truth is the work of 
priestcraft or priesthood, but is, perhaps, God-given, 
find it where w T e may. It is .held for a time in 
" earthen vessels," but is none the less sacred. 

This consideration has all the more weight when 
modern investigations in the department of Compara- 
tive Religions bring the assurance that, two thousand 
years before Christ, every principle of Essential Reli- 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. 1 33 

gion was held with striking uniformity throughout the 
civilized world. 

He is an awful infidel, therefore, who would over- 
throw the truth in any religion on earth : seek rather 
to reconcile the truth, wherever found, to modern prog- 
ress and thought. The natural logic, the fundamental 
common sense or common understanding, and the im- 
mutable conscience of the race, even when found 
among the rudest of mankind, demand respect from 
all schools and all classes. 

The church should rejoice, not sigh, that unconscious 
prophecies and even dreams of beauty which eye hath 
not seen, or ear heard, have visited the hearts of hu- 
man beings generations and generations ago. It should 
not hush these glorious utterances of paganism, for 
hath not God spoken to all men " at sundry times and 
in divers manners " ? 

But there is another application to be made of this 
thought ; and to this point the attention of those who 
oppose Christian faith is especially invited. The mat- 
ter may be stated in form of an inquiry. Did it ever 
occur to the sceptic, when contending for the univer- 
sality of religious ideas, what a weapon he thereby 
places in the hand of the Christian ? Is he aware that 
when he has urged upon public attention the correct- 
ness of some pagan notions, that questions will be 
asked respecting other notions ? If pagans have been 
correct in some things, why draw the line so sharply 
when ideas of a Mediator and incarnation present' 
themselves? Who knows but these ideas may be as 
correct as those relating to law and morals? Plato 
ruled the human mind from his own era to that of 



134 GOD-MAN. 

Bacon. Jerome carried his works under his hermit's 
mantle, and Augustine under his bishop's robe. High 
was the compliment paid him by Coleridge, u A plank 
from the wreck of Paradise, cast upon the shores of 
idolatrous Greece. " He was, beyond dispute, one of 
the most clear and righteous reasoners the world has 
seen. Yet he believed with almost prophetic convic- 
tion that there must be, or ought to be, a God-man 
and Mediator ; if right in other respects, may he not 
also have been right in these religious opinions ? 

This thought will bear a more general application. 
There is no sceptic living who is not willing to admit 
that it will be a long time before the race can outgrow 
some of the sentiments in Cicero's Nature of the Gods, 
and also the preface to his treatise on Laws. 

yEschylus deals with established truths when show- 
ing that the blood of a murdered man never congeals, 
and that the God who lives and u ages not" will bring 
offenders to justice and reward the good. The grand 
principles of moral obligation are, in some instances, 
nearly, if not quite, as clearly represented by pagans as 
by Christians. 

The so-called " bloody Druids," who were at once 
the ministers of religion, the teachers of science, and 
the legislators and judges of the people, embodied 
their religion in the three precepts, " Worship the 
gods, do no evil, and act with courage." The Greek 
tragedians, too, were ever speaking of " unwritten 
laws." * • 

* With what lofty expression does Sophocles clothe the 
thought, "May destiny aid me to preserve unsullied the 
purity of my words and of all my actions, according to those 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. 135 

Aristotle means the same thing when he says that 
"justice is before society." 

" It is," says Cicero, " Right, Reason ; not one thing 
at Athens, another at Rome, but uniform, and coeval 
with the Divine Mind." * 

In the realm of practical morals these pagan phi- 
losophers likewise entertained, in many instances, 
correct and lofty theories. Aristotle's text-book on 
morals has much, even in our day, that commends 
itself. The common brotherhood of man is strongly 
emphasized by Epictetus, Quintilian, Marcus Aure- 
lius, Seneca, and the Stoics generally. Says Zeno, 
" Greeks and barbarians drink from the same cup of 
brotherly love." " All men, everywhere," says Dio- 
dorus, " belong to one family." " No man is a stran- 
ger to me," says Menander, " provided he be a good 
man ; for we have all one and the same nature." 
Terence is no less emphatic. u I am a man," he 
says ; " nothing human can I count foreign to me." 
" Will you enslave those," exclaims Epictetus, " who 

sublime laws which, brought forth in the celestial heights, 
have heaven alone for their father, to which the race of mortal 
men did not give birth, and which oblivion shall never in- 
tomb ! In them is a supreme God, and one who waxes not old." 
* Modern writers, with multiplied advantages, scarcely 
more than echo the same ideas. "The archetype of all 
human laws," says Hooker, "has its seat in the bosom of 
God." Montesquieu speaks of this fundamental law as " the 
substantial principle of all societies." Blackstone mentions 
"a law of nature, whereunto if any human statute be con- 
trary, it is not valid." Cudworth's " immutable morality " 
is the same. Milton mentions " a law of laws, fundamental 
to all mankind.'' 



I36 GOD-MAN. 

are your brothers by nature, and children of God?" 
And in Vishnu Sarma we read, " Is this one of us, or 
is he a stranger? 'is the classification of the ungener- 
ous ; but to those by whom liberality is practised, the 
whole world is but as one family." 

When the Jesuit missionaries Hue and Gabet told 
one of the Lamas that they were from distant France, 
he replied, "What matter where you are from? All 
men are brothers. Men of prayer belong to all coun- 
tries. They are strangers nowhere. Such is the doc- 
trine taught by our Holy Books." 

The King of Siam, upon being told that a certain 
image in his court was St. Peter, immediately said 
to his little boy, " Do obeisance to it, my son ; it is 
one of the holy men." 

As we read such lofty utterances, do we not half 
feel that pagans are correct, and in some sort our 
kinsfolk ? 

Approaches to the Golden Rule are also found scat- 
tered through pagan writings. " What you do not 
wish done to yourself," says Confucius, " do not do to 
others." Said Thales, u That which thou blamest in 
another, do not thyself to thy neighbor." Pythagoras 
repeats and enjoins the same sentiment. " Thou wilt 
deserve to be honored," said Socrates, " if thou doest 
not thyself what thou blamest in others." " Do to no 
man what thou thyself hatest," is the sentiment of 
Tobit ; and Hillel said, " Do not to another what thou 
wouldest not he should do to thee ; this is the sum of 
the law." In fact, every known language has forms 
for transmitting golden rules of Christian faith. And 
generosity, courage, and self-sacrifice have always, and 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. 137 

among all nations, commanded the intuitive or spon- 
taneous and involuntary respect of human nature. 

We may venture a step farther. The ten sins con- 
demned by Buddha are, killing animals, theft, adultery, 
falsehood, discord, contemptuous language, idle talk, 
covetousness, envy, malice. Homute, Hookhti, and 
Vnrusti, u purity of speech," "purity of action," and 
" purity of thought," furnish the foundation upon 
which the entire system of the Zendavesta is estab- 
lished. 

Some of the maxims of Zoroaster are touchingly 
beautiful, and of high spirituality withal- — " Reply to 
thine enemy with gentleness ; " " To refuse hospitality 
and not succor the poor are sins ;." " Fornication and 
immodest looks are sins ; " " To think evil is a sin." 

Sophocles, while presenting us with the moral ideal 
of touching devotion and purity, shows a conscience 
which is thoroughly alive to the " unwritten laws" of 
God. In Antigone we read, in justification of doing 
good to an enemy, "I was not born to hate, but to 
love." 

Now, the correctness of these sentiments is ques- 
tioned by no one. But they were a part of a great 
system of human thought which has commended itself 
to the best portion of the human race in all ages. 
Whatever be our individual views, the profoundest 
respect for prevailing opinions is demanded, especially 
when that opinion is acknowledged to have been cor- 
rect in so many of its conclusions, and when it seems 
to be, not merely domesticated to the habits of thought, 
but to be essentially indigenous to man's spiritual 
existence. On the side of these truths are to be found 



138 GOD-MAN. 

God's majorities. As already claimed opposing mi- 
norities will, in these matters, never become ruling 
majorities. When so many agree, the thing agreed 
upon can never be a mere brain-birth. However per- 
verse may have been popular life, these truths have 
remained. They have not been the exclusive property 
of the few ; not simply the suppositions of Plato, but 
the convictions of the masses. Those who gave ex- 
pression to these sentiments were not all thinkers, but 
all held fast to the opinions. u Some men think, but 
all men have opinions." * " Do you not see," says 
Seneca, " how the benches echo whenever things are 
said which we recognize to be true ? " 

But it was this same great system of human thought, 
supported by such multitudes and teaching such nobler 
truths, which also held with eqaal tenacity to the reli- 
gious doctrines of mediator, incarnation, and sacrifice. 
This essential theology o£ humanity is as well estab- 
lished as its essential morality : they both occupy the 
same position. The appeal of one is no less earnest 
and imperative than that of the other. Humanity 
is no better moralist than theologian. Upon what 
grounds, then, of reasoning or equity is the voice in 
the one case applauded, and in the other disregarded ? 
We may reject both ; but can we accept one and 
reject the other? 

* Berkeley. 



VI. 

ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICANCE OF ES- 
SENTIAL THEOLOGY. 



MYTHOLOGY," says a writer of note, " records 
not factS) but opinions." But whence the 
opinions? Bossuet thinks they are "distortions of 
Hebrew literature." Gladstone says they are " myths 
growing out of original descriptions of nature." Creu- 
zer holds that they are " the echo of nature in our con- 
sciousness." Max Miiller decides that they are at- 
tempts " to express abstract ideas by means of the 
extension of concrete terms." Some look upon them 
as the " debris of ancient systems," often, however, 
covered, and concealed under parasitic vegetation. Oth- 
ers regard them as " broodings " of the hermits of the 
Ganges, and the priests under the shadows of the 
pyramids or elsewhere. Not a few in the last class 
look upon the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures as 
transcribings from other records, and the system of 
religion they present as a compilation from religious 
and philosophical systems more ancient than them- 
selves. This position, which has been so long in favor 

J39' 



140 GOD-MAN. 

with the opposition, demands a moment's notice. Is 
it not a singular example of unfairness when sceptics 
allow all forms of religious belief to flow into Jerusa- 
lem, even when Jewish laws forbade the introduction 
of new gods, under severe threatenings, and when at 
the same time they do not allow the religious ideas of 
the Jews to flow out into pagan lands? The Jews 
offered their religion to the world ; would it not be 
singular if some in the world did not accept it? * 

The Jews were scattered through Assyria, Persia, 
Greece, and Rome. They were inhabitants of Ara- 
bia, and also of Egypt. Under the Ptolemies there 
were a million Jews in Egypt. They performed the 
rites of their religion in Alexandria, had synagogues 
in Asia Minor, Persia, and India ; and their scriptures 
are among the oldest writings extant. If, upon the 
ground of tradition or revelation, we were called upon 
to account for the monotheistic and mediatorial notions 
which are detected in all ancient religions, or to ex- 
plain the definite Messianic hopes of all nations, is it 
not quite as reasonable to say they came from Judaism 
as from paganism ? Justin Martyr bravely meets his 
opponents thus : " It is not, therefore, that we hold 

* We read, " Moreover, concerning a stranger, that is not 
of thy people Israel, but cometh out of a far country for thy 
name's sake ; (for they shall hear of thy great name, and 
of thy strong hand, and of thy stretched-out arm ;) when he 
shall come and pray toward this house, hear thou in heaven 
thy dwelling-place, and do according to all that the stranger 
calleth to thee for; that all people of the earth may know thy 
name, to fear thee, as do thy people Israel; and that they 
may know that this house which I have builded is called by 
thy name." 1 Icings viii. 41-43. 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. 141 

the same opinions as others, but that all others speak 
in imitation of us." " Our laws," says Philo, " attract 
all to themselves — barbarians, strangers, Greeks, the 
dwellers on continents and in islands, in the east, in 
the west, and in Europe." 

It is not our purpose, in these citations, to thus ac- 
count for the origin of Essential Theology. We are no 
more inclined to give it a Jewish origin than are ob- 
jectors ; but w r e wish to show that to deny originality 
to Judaism, and claim it for paganism, is simply asser- 
tive and fallacious.* This position, however, leaves 
ground for more or less traditional influence. If there be 
a religious atmosphere which pervades all lands, as there 
certainly seems to be, then it must be breathed by all, 
and be more or less affected by all who breathe it. 

It is, indeed, exceedingly difficult to trace religious 
ideas through tradition up to any one original source.f 

* The position taken by Mackay is sensible. " Many Asiatic 
nations," he says, " are known to have entertained concep- 
tions not unlike the Messianic theory of the Hebrews. There 
is, however, no proof of plagiarism on either side — that other 
nations borrow it from Hebrews, or the Hebrews from other 
nations." 

Some church historian, perhaps Mosheim, has made es- 
sentially the same admission. " It is difficult to determine," 
he says, " whether heathen were most Christianized, or Chris- 
tians most heathenized." 

Dorner's conclusion is liberal, yet more definite, and, we 
think, nearer correct : "The opinion must seem well founded, 
that the entire vast region of heathen religion contains nothing 
that can impeach the originality of the Christian ground-idea ; 
whilst, on the other hand, the whole of heathendom strains 
after this idea, without being able, from its stand-point, so 
much as distantly to approach the conception of it in its truth." 

t In a lecture delivered before the late session of the Brit- 



142 GOD-MAN. 

Aristotle does not claim that the Grecian doctrine 
of the gods is entirely original with the Greeks. 
" Since it is probable," he says, " that philosophy and 
the arts have been several times, so far as that is pos- 
sible, found and lost, such doctrines [religious] may 
have been preserved to our times as the remains of 
ancient wisdom." Buddha, in protesting against 
caste, quotes an ancient " law of universal equality 
and grace." Confucius does not claim that he origi- 
nated his rules of morality, but confesses that he ob- 
tained them from a remote antiquity. He speaks of 
himself as a u transmitter," not a " maker." " I only 
hand on," he says ; " I cannot create new things. I 
believe in the ancients ; therefore I love them." 

In general, the truths of Essential Religion, and of Es- 
sential Morality, seem to be co-extensive with humani- 
ty, and as old as thought. Adventurers like Abraham 
and Buddha have appeared in all ages, teaching and 

ish Scientific Association, Edinburgh, on the Relation of 
Primitive to Modern Civilization, Mr. Tylor showed that, 
so far as purely scientific research goes, primeval man existed 
in a state strikingly similar to that of the modern savage; 
the stone-age man of the past being represented by the sav- 
age of the present. The customs, morals, agriculture, land 
tenure, social relations, &c, of both were shown to be striking- 
ly alike. He also confesses that science is upon this subject 
of but limited range. " As far back as it can go," — to employ 
his own language, — " its discoveries show that primeval man 
existed in a state of savage degradation ; but beyond that point 
lies avast unexplored region, as to which science can tell 
us nothing; and most sensible people will say that, as they 
have to choose between the account given by revelation or 
absolute ignorance, they prefer to choose the former." 



ESSENTIAL THEOJLOGY. 1 43 

preaching them. As these truths come to us, they are, 
therefore, common property, " floating ideas," u elder 
truths," in Adam's heart, and in all men's hearts ; 
handed on from hand to hand, through migrations, 
explorations, and otherwise ; unifying us with all past 
saints and sages, and with God ; most likely they are 
the voice of God resounding through the ages. 

If these statements be correct, it will appear that 
the position opposed to the one to which exception 
has just been taken, is likewise not valid ; i. e., that all ' 
religious ideas among the pagans are borrowed from 
the Jews. Undoubtedly all paganism has been, to 
some extent, influenced, though in the main uncon- 
sciously, by that wonderful, direct, and authoritative 
revelation to the " chosen people." It is not too much 
to say that light from it did rise and spread itself for 
centuries upon the mountains, u before its glory reached 
the plain." But certainly these independent pagans 
did not recognize it as Jewish light, and did not inten- 
tionally borrow. And more than this, it cannot be 
denied that some truths not clearly revealed in the Old 
Testament, though luminous in the New, are quite 
forcibly stated, prior to the Christian era, in pagan 
writings. Whence are these ? The truest among the 
pagans were Seneca, Epictetus, and Aurelius ; yet they 
entertained the prevalent pagan notions, and looked 
upon the Christians as the most u degraded and the 
most detestable " sect of what had long been held as 
the most degraded and detestable of all religions — the 
Jewish. Tacitus speaks of Christianity as a " detestable 
superstition." Pliny speaks of Christians as " pesti- 
lent fellows," and Juvenal also uttered his bitter satires 
against them. 



144 GOD-MAN. 

We think it a great mistake, therefore, to say that 
Seneca obtained his morals and religious thoughts by 
means of correspondence with St. Paul ; that Aristotle 
gleaned his ethical system from a Jew whom he met 
in Asia ; that Philo met certain apostles in Rome, and 
built his system upon thoughts borrowed from them ; 
that Plato was a student of Moses ; that Pythagoras 
built upon Hebrew traditions, collected in his travels ; 
that Thales composed his philosophy from " frag- 
ments of Jewish truth ; " and that Zoroaster was a dis- 
ciple of the prophet Jeremiah. Such claims are not 
well sustained. They show a degree of unfairness 
that never helps the cause of truth. We are left in 
the face of them to look elsewhere for a solution of 
our inquiries. 

We therefore renew the question, Whence these es- 
sential religious ideas, and what their import? 

The first supposition is, that they are received through 
tradition. As they present themselves to modern times, 
it is doubtless true that they have brought along with 
them much traditional matter. All systems of phi- 
losophy and religion are more or less accumulative. 
" Patient mankind," Parker well remarks, " never 
loses a useful truth." " Thought once awakened does 
not again slumber." * It was a happy conceit, but 
contains a deeper truth than was intended, when Dr. 
South said that " Aristotle was the rubbish of an 
Adam." 

But this position is far from satisfactoiy, and vari- 
ous are its objections. Religious conviction is some- 
thing distinct from accretion ; it is not a tiling that 

* Carlyle. 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. 145 

stands by outward force or traditional prestige, so 
much as by its own native strength. Independent of 
Hebrew revelation or any number of traditions, the 
search after truth w 7 ould, undoubtedly, have been pros- 
ecuted all the same. Questions from youth to age, 
from first to last, while human nature remains, can 
never cease. Conclusions would still be reached and 
opinions formed, were all tradition lost. All great 
truths are eternal : it is merely their fashion of dress 
that changes. All these unspent rays, from whatever 
source they come, have been kept, and will be perpet- 
uated, independent of words, or ink, paper, or tables 
of marble or bronze. Did not the Ten Commandments 
exist before they were engraved ? Did they not remain 
in all their force, and all the same, after the lawgiver 
broke into fragments the stone slabs which recorded 
them? 

But we can follow this same thought in another 
direction. Is it not a short sight which fails to see 
that beyond tradition must be threads, at least, from 
which tradition itself is woven? Ideas precede tradi- 
tion. Ideas are back of everything. Perhaps they 
are back of God, or are God ; we cannot tell ; because, 
when we reach him on scientific ground, we are out 
of breath. Emphatically, then, accumulated traditions 
must have some sort of origin. We are, therefore, 
driven back of tradition for an answer to our question, 
because, plainly, tradition is no originator, ancl did not 
and could not originate the religious ideas of man. 

Another supposition is, that religious opinions are 
the product of original and special revelations from the 
divine, given to the different nations in those ages when 
10 



146 GOD-MAN. 

God talked, as might be said, face to face with man ; 
or, employing an intermediate and natural agency, an 
early age produced religious ideas spontaneously, as 
the " Life Stuff" of Huxley, after the world was pre- 
pared for it, appeared, producing life in all its forms. 

Whatever religious ideas have of late appeared are, 
upon this supposition, fragments only of these prime- 
val revelations or products. The Cartesian school, 
while not insisting upon special primitive revelations, 
such as are claimed for the Hebrew Scriptures, would 
state the matter thus : I am in possession of sublime 
and most wonderful ideas of God ; whence come they ? 
As the finite cannot originate the infinite, and as I am 
not destitute of these qualities, they cannot proceed 
from myself. If they came from tradition, where did 
the one w r ho first stated them find them ?■ Nay, these 
ideas of God are a tableau or image upon the soul, 
the original stamp and impression of the workman's 
name set indelibly upon the work. 

But in either case mentioned, — that is, by special 
divine revelations or by special divine impressions, — 
we are equally forced to trace universal ideas respect- 
ing an Infinite Being, a Mediator, an Incarnation, and a 
Sacrifice, together with all others discussed, back to 
God as their source. But if these essential truths of 
theology originally came from him, are they not the 
complete and infallible expression of eternal and ne- 
cessary truth ? for God deals only with such. The 
world is God's objective thought. Revelation, be it on 
the printed page or in the soul of man, is his expressed, 
thought. For God to think a falsehood would be for 
him to tell a lie. If, therefore, God be not a phantom, 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. 1 47 

and if the central thought of the race relates to media- 
tion, and its hungering and thirsting be in the direc- 
tion of a God-man, Revealer, and Redeemer, then 
God, so far as we can see and reason, would lose his 
title to virtue and truth did he not likewise make the 
central thought of history an incarnation, including 
the other relations and conditions already discussed. 

The continuous search for these things is the fam- 
ishing and extorted cry of God's children for bread — 
a cry that nothing trivial can satisfy. " Be ye clothed 
and be ye fed," amounts to nothing. No culture or ex- 
perience can satisfy. Plato longed as intensely, nay, 
more so than the slave that served him. 

Here, then, is an unusual and gnawing hunger, which, 
according to the supposition, God has implanted and 
excited. Did he only mean by it starvation? Will he 
give nothing but scorpions for eggs, and stone for bread ? 
If the desires of humanity could produce anything, would 
they not have produced a God-man ? If these desires 
are a prayer, will not God answer prayer and give a 
God-man? The reply and conclusion are obvious and 
inevitable. God will not — we speak it with rever- 
ence, he cannot — mock the long-cherished aspirations 
of the soul, or tantalize its holy ideals. God will not 
and cannot play false with the human race. He has 
not kindled these fires in the human soul, fires burning 
at night, and which go not out by day, for nought. 
If he has told men, directly or indirectly, specially or 
in general, that there has been, for instance, or is to 
be, a God-man, then, though man may be often mis- 
taken in his selection and application, yet there must 
be, sooner or later, such a God-man as shall harmonize 



148 GOD-MAN. 

with God's ideal and declaration. God has thought 
these things, or man had not. For him to think — as 
we have seen — is for him to speak. He never breaks 
his word or thought. It does therefore seem that God 
is bound, in view of these principles, to give humanity, 
at the best possible moment in the history of the hu- 
man race, a God-man, Mediator, and Atoner, by pre- 
cisely the same high moral obligations as bind him to 
be good and true. Many an eastern sky has the sun 
tinted and painted, but never without afterwards show- 
ing his face above the horizon. A faith which God 
inspires is a prophecy which awaits as sure fulfilment 
as sunrise, unless God and humanity are dreams. Even 
if that be true, humanity must dream once more ; the 
God-man must be a dream, and be as real as God and 
existing man. 

Another supposition is, that our religious ideas came 
from human speculations. This theory need not long 
detain us ; it is neither deep nor philosophical. Her- 
bert Spencer has clearly shown that the hypothesis of 
an " artificial origin'*' for religious belief is utterly 
untenable, and that we cannot ignore the grand fact 
that while criticism and science may have modified 
theological dogma and formula, they have u not, and 
cannot, destroy the fundamental conceptions underly- 
ing these dogmas." 

It is clear that there can be no human speculation 
without certain data to start from. Speculations which 
to any extent, and for any length of time, have pre- 
vailed, must have been built upon data originally cor- 
rect. Correct original data must have come from God, 
or the moral instincts. If from God, he would seem, 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. 149 

as above shown, to be held responsible for their fulfil- 
ment. If they came from our moral instincts, then, as 
our instincts are created by him, we reach the same 
conclusion respecting God's relations to us by merely 
taking, through the instincts, an additional step. 

But change the course of thought for a moment, 
and so far as the argument is concerned, let God be 
omitted from the question and from responsibility. In- 
troduce, instead, the principle of the " soul's faith." 

The entire pagan world was full of faith in the data 
of Essential Theology. Faith is substance and evi- 
dence, and is always above sense. The atheist and 
socialist can never destroy these human convictions, 
or hinder the accompanying aspirations. 

" Faith," says Fichte, " is the ground of all conviction. 
God is infinite, therefore beyond the reach of our sense, 
which can only embrace the finite, but not beyond our 
faith." " God," he continues, — and he might add, all 
deep religious truths, — u must be believed in, not in- 
ferred." May not these self-reporting convictions, these 
strange " preludings," be at the same time notions and 
facts ? What, in fine, can sooner be relied upon than 
the sublime disclosures and whisperings of a religious 
soul respecting religious truth ? 

Divested of their halo, fundamental religious ideas, 
come from whence they may, seem to be invested 
with a dignity and importance which admit of no 
trifling, and furnish presumptive evidence which is 
unanswerable. To reject notions eagerly embraced 
by mankind, and fondly cherished, is foolhardy. Such 
ideas may have an import more vast and wonderful 
than has yet been conceived. The great soul of humani- 



150 GOD-MAN. 

ty cannot be mocked by its own aspirations, yearn- 
ings, and gropings. Humanity has within itself the 
prophecy of eternal truths, and the human mind, in its 
mere normal conditions, does evolve these truths be- 
cause they are true and must be fulfilled. What if at 
times there has been a false halo round a disk of glory? 
— "a halo," as Newman remarks, " so congenial to 
human nature, that the absence of it might be even 
wielded as an objection." Does not a halo prove the 
disk? Halos, any number of them, never make war 
upon the sun and moon which produce them. Dis- 
eases, as medical men tell us, are but " perverted life 
processes ; " thus false religions are only perversions 
of what is true. u All errors are partial truths," is a 
philosophical aphorism. They are not the shortest 
distance between the two points, but efforts to find it. 
Nay, errors and perversions do not damage the prop- 
osition that the essential truths of religion have in 
them something that does far transcend the language of 
ordinary approximation. Why hesitate to say that 
permanent manifestations of human thought are as 
reliable as permanent manifestations in nature? 

But we must narrow the range while seeking reply 
to the question before us. In doing so, let it be borne 
in mind that we raise no disputes with philosophers. 
It answers our purpose equally well to side with Male- 
branche, Schelling, Coleridge, and Cousin, who pro- 
nounce these first truths of religion to be strictly and 
purely intuitions ; or, with the early philosophers, the 
scholastics of the middle ages, and theologians of 
modern times, who say they are disccr?ied by the light 
of nature; or with Descartes, and his school, who 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. 151 

assume that they are connate with the soul ; or with 
Dr. Reid and the Scottish school, who interpret them 
upon the ground of common sense; or with Dugald 
Stewart, John Stuart Mill, and Herbert Spencer, who 
account for them upon the ground of experience and 
" associations that cannot be overcome and separated." 

Call them what we may, " elements a priori," * or 
" positive cognitions," f products of the " prudens 
quasstio," \ or " fore-thoughtful query," § or inspirations 
of the Holy Ghost, or by any other name, — one thing is 
certain, they exist, and ultimately they must be traced 
back, directly or indirectly, even in the philosophy of 
Herbert Spencer, either to special original revelations, 
or to certain fundamental and original elements of 
knowledge or belief. The subsequent accumulation, 
by association or tradition, does not in the least explain 
the first terms in the series. 

Cutting off, then, their excrescences, and passing back 
to their origin, and leaving out the thought of divine 
agency, v/e reach the strict philosophic and naturalis- 
tic position, that all primary religious ideas are based 
upon original intuitions ; in other words, upon the soul's 
faith. We have before us, then, the question of pure 
intuitions. But it is a universal tendency of the race 
to associate internal monitions with some correspond- 
ing external reality. Reality is always a coincidence 
of desire and thought.jj Apply these principles for a 
moment to the general subject before us. We have 

* Kant. f Hamilton. % Bacon. § Coleridge. 

|| The Hindoo Menu is correct. Universal instinct is what 
transcendeth all law. "We may see God twice," — within 



152 GOD-MAN. 

already found every religion, every system of philoso- 
phy, every school, ancient and modern, in quest of an 
At-one-ment. We have seen that the idea of media- 
tor did not originate with Christianity, but that all eyes 
since Adam have been looking towards such a God- 
Man, or a Man-God, as could accomplish a certain 
reconciliation demanded, if not by the Deity, then by 
Humanity. We have seen that upon the common 
consciousness of the great mass of men has dawned 
the idea of sacrificial atonement through a divine mani- 
festation. 

We have every reason to believe, judging from com- 
parative Theology and comparative Christology, if there 
should be blotted from the page of history to-day all 
mention of religious thought, and if all religious tra- 

and without, — and in either case he is equally God. Hegel is 
right in saying, upon strictly naturalistic or pantheistic 
grounds, that " the ideal is ever striving for realization." 

There is truth in the modern radical claim that "the possi- 
bility of certitude primarily depends on the voice of our spiritu- 
al constitution.'' And Emerson mistakes not in saying that, 
"The questioner which brings so many problems will bring 
the answers also in due time." "The subjective and objec- 
tive merge into one another." " The same correspondence 
that is between thirst in the stomach and water in the spring 
exists between the whole of man and the whole of nature." 

Guizot's saj r ing is also wise. "There is a philosopher 
greater than Aristotle, Plato, Bacon, Pascal, Newton, and 
Kant — namely, humanity." 

No little consideration is due to the popular expressions, 
"The voice of the people is the voice of God," and "What 
every one says must be true." He who said that when the true 
" statesmen's breath of yea and nay salutes the lungs, God is 
inhaled and exhaled," was not far from correct. 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGV. 1 53 

dition were completely suppressed, that to-morrow the 
formula of God and the God-man, more or less per- 
fect, and essentially the same as the}' are to-day, would 
reappear. All the sentiments, hints, and expressions 
of thought and feeling bearing upon these points which 
have been industriously compiled by Grotius, Wet- 
stein, and others from the writings of heathen prior to 
the coming of Christ, show that if Jesus were not 
thought to be the true Christ, the world would begin 
and continue to look until the coming of another. 
Abolish Christ and his religion to-day, and the oracles 
of Delphi, or others, would be consulted to-morrow. 
A divine Messiah and authoritative Revealer are found 
to be an established necessity in human nature. Hu- 
manity will have a Christ. 

Allowing, then, the majority to interpret the minority, 
which in religious matters and matters of common 
sense and common understanding, other things equal, 
we are compelled to do, we reach an inevitable con- 
clusion. Either these religious ideas must have a sub- 
stantial realization, — that is, there must be something 
to correspond to these heaving and swelling tides of 
the human soul, — or else human nature is throughout a 
stupendous and disastrous falsehood, all existences are 
phantasms, and to the four winds should be flung 
every form of modern philosophy.* 

We accept, however, no such issue. " Souls see 
what eyes seek in vain." Renan, too, qualifiedly ex- 
presses a grand truth in closing his St. Paul. " O 
Humanity ! thou art just at times, and certain of thy 

* Appendix, G. 



154 GOD-MAN. 

judgments are good." 'We acknowledge the correctness 
of no religious speculations, from whatever source they 
come, and however profound they may be, which do 
not in the main harmonize with the common sense of 
the vast majority of the race : this is not bigotry, but 
philosophy. That pagan cradle-making we cannot 
look upon as a meaningless enterprise ; it was meant 
well, and in good faith. Their views sometimes rested 
upon a pillow of clouds ; but their infant-idea was 
growing. Behind their prattle were motion and a beat- 
ing heart. The fish is a prophecy of man in geological 
science. God has often reflected his predetermination 
in humanity. His " premeditation prior to creation " * 
is the wonderful truth verified by all departments of 
natural history. The Old Testament foreshadows the 
New. Pagan faith is thus also a prelude to a high- 
er ; it is not accidental, nor factitious, but is as light- 
ning-gleams in midnight darkness, and signals of 
something yet to come. 

This u half-seeing" human nature in quest of truth 
is, simply, the mind of man partaking of the mind of 
God. u God is the quarry of all ; how old it is ! how 
long it has supplied the world with spotless marble ! " 
" O God," exclaimed Kepler, " I think thy thoughts 
after thee." " Classification," says Agassiz, u is but 
an interpretation of the thoughts of the Creator." 

The basis of modern philosophy is, u that the ration- 
al methods of the divine and human intellect must 
be the same." We are not remote from God. The 
pulses of his heart are felt in every throb-beat of human 
thought and being. 

* Agassiz. 



ESSENTIAL THEOLOGY. 155 

Religious intuitions are not merely a grand and sub- 
lime mystery, but are thoughts " before which all oth- 
ers in the mind ought to bow down in awe and rever- 
ence, — thoughts which may be the very shadow cast 
upon the human soul of that mysterious, incompre- 
hensible, unseen One, of whose being and presence it 
dimly informs us." 

This search for God, and for One to stand between 
God and man, which is co-existent with religious feel- 
ing and being, is the knocking at every gate and pas- 
sage-way, and the trying of every door leading to the 
halls of truth. It is the soul of man prying into every 
crevice where a ray of light appears. It is a peering 
into every dark nook and corner which is thought to 
hold invaluable treasures. It is a shout to the Keeper 
to deliver up the treasure or let the seeker in. 

The brawny arms of those ancient hunters were 
stretched out for help to do what they felt their un- 
aided powers could not do. Their mud-clogged feet 
were seeking if they could find a well-made path to 
the invisible. They were looking for One. Has he 
come? — or look we for another? 



MANIFESTATION. 

(i57) 



Nemo potest Deum scire, nisi a Deo doceatur. No one can 
know God, unless taught of God. Irenjeus. 



I feel it; I have heaped upon my brain 
The gathered treasures of man's thought in vain, 
And when at length from studious toil I rest, 
No power, no love, springs up within my breast; 
A hair's breadth is not added to my height; 
I am no more the infinite. Goethe. 



Like us, a man, he trod on earthly soil, 
He bore each pang, and strove in weary toil; 
He spake with human words, with pity sighed; 
Like us he mourned, and feared, and wept, and died. 

Sterling. 

One who sees all suffering, comprehends all wants, 
All weakness fathoms, can supply all needs. 

Wordsworth. 

Yes ! Thou art still the Life : Thou art the way 
The holiest know; Light, Life, and Way of heaven; 

And they who dearest hope and deepest pray, 

Toil by the Light, Life, Way which thou hast given. 

Theodore Parker. 



" The last in Nature's course; the first in Wisdom's 
thought." 

158 



What sound is it I hear 
Ascending through the dark? 

The tumultuous noise of the nations, 
Their rejoicings and lamentations, ' 
The pleadings of their prayer, 
The groans of their despair, 
The cry of their imprecations, 
Their wrath, their love, their hate ! 

Surely the world doth wait 

The coming of its Redeemer. Longfellow. 



And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for behold I 
bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all 
people. For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, 
a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. Luke ii. 10, n. 

There standeth one among you whom ye know not; he 
it is. John i. 26, 27. 

We have found him of whom Moses in the law and the 
prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. 
John i. 45. 

And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of 
his disciples, which are not written in this book. 

But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is 
the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might 
have life through his name. John xx. 30, 31. 

In the first rank of writings accredited by all must we 
place the sacred quaternian of the Gospels. Eusebius. 

*59 



" Whence but from heaven could men unskilled in arts, 
In different ages born, in different parts, 
Weave such agreeing truths? Or how, or why, 
Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie? 
Unasked their pains, ungrateful their advice, 
Starving their gains, and martyrdom their price." 

I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than 
in any profane history whatever. Sir Isaac Newton. 



Rejecting the miracles of Christ, we still have the miracle 
of Christ himself. Bovee. 



There's not a flower can grow upon the earth, 
Without a flower upon the spiritual side. 

Earth is full of heaven, 
And every common bush afire with God. 

Mrs. Browning. 



He called himself the Son of God : who among mortals 
dare say he was not? Lequinia. 

What is the mysterious power of this One, which binds 
the hearts of all men, of all times and places, so firmly to 
him, that they know no higher love than that which they 
bear to him, and for him are ieady to yield up their lives? 
What is the mystery of his person? What does he say of 
himself? For this will always have to be that which, after 
all, makes the final decision. For so much confidence we 
can in any case give him, — be we never so distrustful in 
other respects, — that he knew who he was, and did not 
speak differently from what he knew. Luthardt. 

1 60 



MANIFESTATION. 



INTRODUCTORY. 

THAT a colossal figure crossed the world's hori- 
zon eighteen centuries ago, no one does, and at 
present no one cares to deny. 

Then, by universal testimony, commenced a new 
era. Changes, great and grand, were inaugurated. 
And, what is most singular of all, none now fail to 
see, that around the name of a certain One, as an 
attractive centre, all those marked events and changes 
faithfully and forever revolve. He it is who " created 
the object, and fixed the starting-point of the future 
faith of humanity." * 

What is the interpretation thereof? has evoked re- 
sponses, many and diverse. 

* Renan. 

ii 161 



I. 

NEW ERA. 



THE Christian era, it is well known, dawned 
amidst events and characteristics apparently con- 
tradictory. It was, in point of culture, neither a dark 
nor dead age. It was, on the contrary, a time of great 
intellectual vigor and refinement. It was, too, an age 
of literary and scientific toleration. "No scientific 
man was molested. Men like Galen, Lucan, and Plo- 
tinus, who would have gone to the stake in the middle 
ages, lived tranquilly under the protection of the 
law." * There were, as the result, a multitude of 
bright stars in brilliant constellations. 

From the death of Sulla, B. C. 78, was the golden 
age of Roman literature, as well as the noonday of 
ancient civilization. It was the age of eclecticism in 
which the best and wisest thoughts of all the earlier 
philosophers were collected and taught. It was to 
Rome what the age of Elizabeth was to England. 
Then arose the greatest and grandest names of the 
empire. Cicero tells us that never had such a num- 
ber of illustrious men lived as at that period. There 

* Renan. 

162 



MANIFESTATION. 1 63 

were critics, orators, poets, philosophers, and histo- 
rians. It was the age of Terence, Cicero, Virgil, 
Horace, Sallust, Livy, Julius Caesar, Pompey, Brutus, 
Cassius, Antony, and Cleopatra. The culmination 
was with the Emperor Augustus. He was the devoted 
patron of learning, science, and art, in all their de- 
partments. It was, in fact, an age of the highest art, 
refinement, and philosophy, and, of all others, the age 
that would have allowed no mere pretender to come 
from obscurity to the first rank in society, to mould 
and rule its thought as might please him. 

It was likewise a time of peace. There was univer- 
sal armistice between the Roman empire and all nations 
of the earth, of longer duration than ever before or 
afterwards. Augustus was ambitious to see the con- 
solidation of the empire ; he saw it, was gratified, and 
turned his own and the public attention to the develop- 
ment of arts and the industries of peace. What more 
fortunate time had there been for religious investiga- 
tion, thought, and growth? 

It is well to notice that the time of Christ's appear- 
ance was also the age of Rome's political supremacy. 

Beginning with Spain, and passing through Gaul, 
Germany, Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, 
Egypt, and Carthage, round to the Pillars of Hercules 
again, we find that eveiy state was then subject to the 
same central power. Never before as then, to have 
been a Roman citizen, whether merchant or mission- 
ary, would, have secured a passport anywhere in the 
civilized world.* 

* Analogies have been drawn, with much propriety, between 
the Roman empire at that stage, and the present political 



164 GOD-MAN. 

It was, in addition to all this, an age when, as at 
no time before, the same language prevailed in all 
countries bordering upon the Mediterranean Sea — a 
language which scholars have ever since regarded as 
the most remarkable in its strength and flexibility, and 
eminently adapted for enshrining and transmitting 
ordinary facts and spiritual truths.* 

Was it not a marvellous accident, if accident it 
w 7 ere, that resulted in bringing Christianity upon the 
stage at that epoch, and in arranging that this re- 
markable language, with local modifications, modi- 
fying, it is true, its elegance, but not its power of 
accurate delineation, should have been the vehicle of 
intercommunication, that the Jews should have be- 
come acquainted with it during their dispersion, and 
that the words and life of Jesus should be held in its 
deep, rich, and versatile embrace? 

While thus enumerating the favoring influences 
of that period, it cannot fail to suggest itself to any 
thoughtful mind, that Natural Religion ought then to 

condition of the United States of America ; unity and extent 
of territory being the features especially noticeable. It is 
refreshing, after suffering the annoyances of passing through 
the different states of Europe, to journey from New York to 
California without soldiers' challenge, civil passport, or cus- 
tom house fee ; thus through that vast extent of the Roman 
empire. 

* No thorough student will hesitate to indorse the state- 
ment of Harris : " The Greek tongue, from its propriety and 
universality, is made for all that is great and all that is 
beautiful, in every subject, and under every form of writing." 

Coleridge also expresses what is approved by all. " Greek," 
he says, " the shrine of the gems of the old world; as uni- 



MANIFESTATION. 1 65 

have produced, if ever, its grandest, and withal most 
satisfactory products. 

What age could better have found its way into the 
unexplored path? What people so likely by wisdom 
to find out God? Surely, some learned Roman, hav- 
ing at command all the literary and philosophical lore 
of Greece, or some cultivated Greek, under the wealthy 
patronage of Rome, will now open to the world the 
temple of Truth. Alas for human expectations ! 

" There is the moral of all human tales, 
'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past, 

First freedom, and then glory; when that fails, 
Wealth, vice, corruption, — barbarism at last; 
And History, with all her volumes vast, 

Hath but one page." 

This age of Roman advantage, culture, and peace 
was an age of terrible moral and religious midnight 
and madness. The zenith of her civilization was the 
nadir of virtue and integrity. Instead of growing 
better under all these fortunate influences, men had 
steadily and in all respects grown worse. Ancient 

versal as our race, as individual as ourselves; of infinite 
flexibility, of indefatigable strength, with the complication 
and the distinctness of Nature herself; to which nothing was 
vulgar, from which nothing was excluded ; speaking to the 
ear like Italian, speaking to the mind like English; with 
words like pictures, with words like the gossamer film of the 
summer; unites at once the variety and picturesqueness of 
Homer with the gloom and the intensity of yEschylus. It is 
not compressed to the closest by Thucydides, not fathomed 
to the bottom by Plato, not sounding with all its thunders, 
nor lit up with all its ardors, even under the Promethean 
touch of Demosthenes." 



1 66 GOD-MAN. 

philosophy had ended m scepticism, materialism, 
and mysticism. Never had atheism been so openly 
avowed. Some of the poets trifled gracefully with 
the existing religion ; others sternly and scornfully 
ridiculed it. Rome brought together the gods of dif- 
ferent nations, placed them face to face, then cursed 
or disowned them all. " Not even boys," says Ju- 
venal, u believe in the religious rites and practices. " 

Baffled again and again was humanity. The cries 
of anguish arising from this state of things were dis- 
tressing. " The peace of God which passeth all un- 
derstanding " was never experienced by them. 

Marcus Aurelius was wise, studious, virtuous. " Yet 
with all this," says Mr. Arnold, u he was agitated, 
stretching out his arms for something beyond." Oth- 
ers had a heart-sickness which was best compared to 
sea-sickness. " What torments us," exclaimed Taci- 
tus, u is not the tempest, but the nausea." " Give me 
new consolation, great and strong, of which I have 
never heard or read," was Pliny's prayer. " All that 
I have heard or read," he continues, " comes back to 
my memory, but my sorrow is too great." u The 
philosophers of the Academy," says Cicero, " affirm', 
nothing. They despair of arriving at any certain 
knowledge." " No man is able to clear himself," 
confessed Seneca ; " let some one give him a hand." 
" Those whom you regard as happy," he adds, " if 
you saw them not in their externals, but in their hid- 
den aspect, are wretched, sordid, and base." 

The provinces of Rome, even Palestine, experienced 
the same sickening heartache. " The dew of blessing 
falls not on us, and our fruits are tasteless," said Rabbi 



MANIFESTATION. 1 67 

Simeon, son of Gamaliel. Before this date had Po- 
iybius, Strabo, Plato, and Aristotle made confession 
of universal doubt and dissatisfaction ; but that the 
same, and greater, should now be repeated in en- 
lightened Rome, is a rejoinder not easily controverted 
by those who would quench the fires of Revealed 
Religion, and rebuild the crumbling altars of the 
religion of pure naturalism. 

But Doubt was not the only ruler of those times. 
Crime was also one of the world's masters when Je- 
sus was born. Universal were the bonds of slavery 
and the palls of spiritual death; and esteem for one 
of the most sacred thoughts of the race — human 
personality and responsibility — had disappeared. It 
cannot fail to suggest itself, in view of these facts, 
that the highest forms of civilization and culture, to- 
gether with religious and political liberty, may be but 
other forms of human curse, if unattended by — but 
we must not anticipate. Those early beliefs, though 
partly correct, did not prevent the nations from lapsing 
into corruptions sad enough to make the heart sick. 

The old monarchies — Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Per- 
sia, and Macedonia — had gone down, one by one, 
overwhelmed with their own vices, and there was 
nothing then existing to restore them. 

Rome had indeed reached the height of her power 
and external refinement ; but how vile and miserable ! 
She was as a sickening cancer ; her amusements were 
cruelties ; her women were like ill-used cattle, and her 
gods were vices personified.* Theodore Parker may 

* A book of testimonies could be compiled, if need be, 
showing the extreme corruption of those times. The con- 



1 68 GOD-MAN. 

for the moment oe our historian, " The corruptions 
of Rome," he says, " could be approximated only by 
putting together all the crime, the gluttony, and the 
licentiousness of New Orleans, New York, Paris, 
London, and Vienna." * 

Nor was the province of Judea much less conspic- 
uous in crime than Rome itself. u Never was there a 
time, since the beginning of the world," says Jose- 
phus, " more fruitful in wickedness." Glance for a 
moment at the ruling family. Antipater, King Her- 
od's son, and Doris, the king's wife, influenced him, 
through misrepresentations, to murder two other sons, 
Alexander and Aristobulus. This the king did, and 
also stained his hands in the blood of their mother, 

fession of Horace is significant: " The age of our fathers, 
worse than that of our grandsires, has produced us, who are 
yet baser, and who are doomed to give birth to a still more 
degraded offspring." 

"Posterity," says Juvenal, "will add nothing to our im- 
mortality : our descendants can but do and desire the same 
crimes as ourselves." 

"More crime," says Seneca, "is committed than can be 
remedied by restraint; wickedness has prevailed so com- 
pletely in the breast of all, that innocence is not rare, but 
non-existent." 

Renan could not avoid the conclusion of his investiga- 
tions : " Madness and cruelty ruled the hour, and made Rome 
a veritable hell. . . . Life seemed to have lost its motives; 
suicide became common. Never had an age presented so 
dire a struggle between good and evil." 

The Elegies of Propertius, the Satyricon of Petronius Ar- 
biter, the Kisses of Johannes Secundus, and the Love Epistles 
of Aristaenetus show that popular literature had never fallen 
into such an awful state of unblushing indecency. 

* See Appendix, H. 



MANIFESTATION. 1 69 

Maria mne. Antipater and Doris then plotted the 
murder of Herod, who, discovering the plot, executed 
Antipater. Subsequently, the king ordered the whole- 
sale and appalling butchery of all children, without 
distinction of age or sex, in Bethlehem and its vicin- 
ity. In his last moments he called in " the royalty 
and nobles," asjosephus informs us, " and ordered 
their execution immediately after his decease, that his 
death might be attended by universal mourning." 

Such the spirit that everywhere prevailed in the 
Roman empire. Such the product of unhallowed 
genius, material civilization, and earthly glory, when 
there is " no fear of God in the middle of it." Such, 
too, the final out-come of temporal prosperity, culture, 
and art — a thing raised aloft as a sign for all ages 
and nations to look upon, at once appalling, dis- 
gusting, and contemptible.* Poor, unassisted human 
nature ! 

What a commentary is history upon inspired rep- 
resentation ! f O, thou cultivated Christless Theism 

* Froude. 

t " And even as they did not like to retain God in their 
knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do 
those things which are not convenient: being filled with all 
unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, ma- 
liciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; 
whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, 
boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 
without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural 
affection, implacable, unmerciful ; who, knowing the judg- 
ment of God, that they which commit such things are wor- 
thy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in 
them that do them." Rom. i. 28-32. 

" As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one ; there 



1 70 GOD-MAN. 

of the nineteenth century, enter no protest; look well 
to your torches ; they betray from what fires they have 
been so handsomely lighted ! * 

is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after 
God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together 
become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not 
one. Their throat is an open sepulchre ; with their tongues 
they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: 
whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet 
are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their 
ways : and the way of peace have they not known. There 
is no fear of God before their eyes." Rom. iii. 10-18. 

"Now I say, that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth 
nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; but is 
under tutors and governors until the time, appointed of the 
father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bond- 
age under the elements of the world : but when the fulness 
of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a 
woman, made under the law, to redeem them that; were un- 
der the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." 
Gal. iv. 1-5. 

* The testimony of Ruskin will be prized by every lover 
of art and truth: "This Nebuchadnezzar curse, that sends 
us to grass like oxen, seems to follow but too closely on the 
excess or continuance of national power and peace. In the 
perplexities of nations, in their struggles for existence, in 
their infancy, their impotence, or even their disorganization, 
they have higher hopes and nobler passions. Out of the 
suffering comes the serious mind; out of the salvation, the 
grateful heart; out of the endurance, the fortitude; out of 
the deliverance, the faith ; but now, when they have learned 
to live under providence of laws, and with decency and jus- 
tice of regard for each other, and when they have done 
away with violent and external sources of suffering, worse 
evils seem arising out of their rest, evils that vex less and 
mortify more; that suck the blood, though they do not shed 
it, and ossify the heart, though they do not torture it." 



MAN IFESTATION. I 7 1 

But, aside from being an intellectual and wicked, it 
was also an age of distressing hunger. Men ate 
enough, such as it was, but were by no means satis- 
fled. Why should they have been ? Can hunger feed 
itself upon hunger? 

There was an intensified longing for one to come 
who could change stones into bread, or feed the race 
on something better than bread, and who could also 
afterwards gather up fragments, that there should be 
more left than had been eaten. 

The importance and significance of pagan predic- 
tions which were attendant upon Christ's coming, 
arrest attention at this point ; they have not yet been 
fully estimated. The heart of heathen poets, feeling 
through the world after Truth, had waited up to 
that time, but, able to wait no longer, it " dared even 
predict a grand religious renovation, and the victory 
of a young God of the future, whose dart should 
transfix Jupiter who had grown too old to be of ser- 
vice, and set free the ancient captive of Caucasus, who 
was the faithful image of humanity quivering under 
badge of sin and worn-out worship." 

It is a well-known fact that at this period many 
prophecies, passing under the name of Sibyls, were 
quite generally prevalent. We gather some of them 
from Virgil's Fourth Eclogue. They blend so won- 
derfully with sacred prophecies that they almost seem 
to have been indorsed and copied, or else prompted, 
by the same Holy Spirit. The Hebrew prophets, for 
instance, spoke of the Messiah's reign as the " restitu- 
tion of all things. " 

So Virgil sings, tv The last era of Cumaean song is 



172 GOD-MAN. 

now arrived ; the great series of ages begins anew. 
Now, too, returns the virgin Astrsea [the goddess of 
justice] ; returns the reign of Saturn ; now a new 
progeny is sent down from high heaven." * 

Suetonius (13 B. C.) made a collection of Sibyls, 
which was extensively circulated, and which " predicted 
the coming of a great King out of Judea, who should, 
in power and glory, reign over the whole- earth." 

This expectation, founded on what Tacitus calls the 
" sacerdotal books," was so prevalent and persistent 
that when Caesar Augustus assumed the office of Pon- 
tifex Maximus, or High Priest of Rome, he issued 
orders, calling in all these prophetic books. Some two 
thousand copies, thus collected, were publicly burned. 
The reason assigned was, that these predictions u cre- 
ated great popular disturbances, and raised many vain 
hopes and fears in the minds of men." f 

It is also beyond question that human gaze was then 
especially fixed upon that quarter whence it was ex- 
pected the looked-for Luminary would arise, and 
whence One did arise, as if to meet the expectation. 
The pious and the wise withdrew from their ordinary 
occupations, and took temporary residence in Jeru- 
salem. I With sublime faith and lofty contemplation 

* See Appendix, I. 

t All are familiar with the story of the Sibyl offering her 
nine books to King Tarquinius Superbus for a certain price; 
and when he would not buy them, burning three, and return- 
ing to offer him the remaining six at the same price : and, 
again repulsed, burning three more, and obtaining the full 
price for the last remaining three. 

I "And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout 
men, out of every nation under heaven." Acts ii. 5. 



MANIFESTATION. 1 73 

they watched for that morning which they believed 
would never know a night, and which would forever 
give light to them that sat in darkness and the shadow 
of death. Patriotism kindled its fires anew at the 
altar of this faith. Josephus tells us that the Jewish 
opposition to the Romans w T as fostered by " an ambig- 
uous oracle," and by the hope it inspired.* 

But here we must pause. First, however, let the 
various lines of thought be concentrated. In view of 

* Suetonius, in his Life of Vespasian, employs the follow- 
ing language : " Throughout the whole east an ancient and 
uninterrupted opinion had become very prevalent, that it 
was fated that at this time some persons coming from Judea 
should gain supreme power. This — as was afterwards plain 
from the event- — was a prediction of the Roman empire; 
but the Jews, applying it to themselves, rebelled. " 

There is striking confirmation in the statement of Taci- 
tus. "A great many persons were persuaded, that according 
to the contents of ancient sacerdotal books, the east would 
at that very time grow powerful, and that some persons com- 
ing from Judea -would gain supreme power. These ambig- 
uous words were a prediction of Vespasian and Titus. But 
the common people [of the Jews], as is customary with what 
men desire, interpreting this great destiny as awaiting them- 
selves, were not moved to the true view even by contrary 
experience." 

Josephus, seeking to conciliate the emperor, states the 
facts in the following language: "What did most elevate 
them [the Jews] in undertaking this war, was an ambiguous 
oracle that was found in their sacred writings, how about 
that time one from their country should become governor of 
the habitable earth. The Jews took this prediction to belong 
to themselves in particular, and many of the wise men were 
thereby deceived in their determination. Now, this oracle 
certainly denoted the government of Vespasian, who was 
appointed emperor in Judea." 



T74 GOD-MAN. 

all these leading characteristics which mark the com- 
mencement of the world's New Era, it is certainly a 
reasonable question whether or not there was then 
especially needed one who, when religious thoughts 
were the most deeply confused and obscured, could 
speak to the bewildered with authority. The world 
had waited with some degree of patience up to that 
time ; but does it not seem as though it could have 
waited no longer? " Who will show us any good? " 
was the demand heard on every hand. If ever one 
was to come who might be able to * answer these 
perplexing questions resting upon all hearts, what 
more fitting time than this, which was not too soon 
to secure the full benefits of mediation, or too late 
to affect the majorities of the race? When would 
the "transcendental principles of Being" more likely 
evoke from Necessity the " Favorite"? When would 
the crisis of development more surely strike from exist- 
ing imperfections its grand and prophesied ideal? 

This was the time when the world was returning 
from its long and tiresome search empty-handed, and, 
being able to do nothing more, w T as simply, in a mo- 
mentary pause to be followed perhaps by some rash 
and desperate departures. Then were the deep and 
dire exigencies of the race calling the loudest for help ; 
then hearts were sighing, yet hoping ; then all eyes 
were tearful, yet fixed upon the last ebb of the great 
deep, which seemed to precede and anticipate the 
grand tide-wave, upon whose crest it was thought the 
Divine but long-delayed Discoverer would be seen 
quelling the tumult, and be heard in the tempest say- 
ing, " Peace, troubled humanity ; I am come." 



II. 

RECORDS 



WHEN all adjustments and reductions are made, 
we find but three distinct positions, which 
thinking men can well occupy, respecting the relation 
of Jesus to historic events. I. That he was a mere 
man, not altogether faultless, who fell upon fortunate 
times and into line with providential developments. 
2. That he was a being more than human and less 
than infinite. 3. That he was both Nazarene artisan 
and Almighty God. 

Startling, indeed, this last announcement ! Yet the 
controversy, as it is now withdrawn from the various 
outposts, is narrowed to that single issue. 

In settling these matters we must depend primarily, 
of course, upon the records of his life. Taken as a 
whole, shall we believe them or not? If we cannot 
appeal to them as true, what substitute exists? The 
life of Jesus cannot be rewritten from new data. If 
we reject these records, is there much or any sense in 
talking or writing about Jesus ? Such are the con- 
siderations which meet us upon the very threshold 

175 



176 GOD-MAN. 

of the discussion, and which again narrow the range 
to the question, Are the records fabrication, or the 
truth? 

That the New Testament accounts of the life of 
Jesus are worthy of belief, though they have been sub- 
jected to the severest criticism, is a growing conviction 
in the public mind.* The hottest contests between 
Rationalism and Supernaturalism in Germany have, it 
is true, related to the four Gospels. But less active 
to-day are the contestants, and the sound of war is 
being hushed ; n.o other nation is now passing so rap- 
idly from scepticism to faith as Germany. 

The opinion that the New Testament accounts are 
myths is, at the present stage of critical review and 
discussion, most rapidly losing ground. 

It is also true, that the Gospel narratives, in their 
form and internal arrangement, seem, upon candid 
review, to all except prejudiced minds, the farthest re- 
moved possible from anything like legendary accounts. 
The New Testament writers, in respect to both myth 
and legend, will bear the most searching examination. 
They could scarcely be less brief, or more graphic, in 
their descriptions. They are frank and positive ; they 
have given us, not histories, or full biographies, but 
memoirs in a style free from all efforts of display or 
efforts of rhetoric, and for the express purpose of 

* No one need be surprised that the gospel records have 
been doubted and objected to; doubt and objection are char- 
acteristic of humanity. Plutarch begins his biography of 
Lycurgus with the following ominous words : " Concerning 
the lawgiver Lycurgus we can assert absolutely nothing which 
is not controverted." 



MANIFESTATION. I *]*] 

"teaching the Christian religion," i. e., the truth as it 
is in Jesus.* They were eye and ear witnesses by 
profession, and all circumstantial evidence supports 
their claim. They were members of the family of 
Jesus. " They travelled with him on foot through- 
out the length and breadth of Palestine ; they partook 
with him of his frugal meals, and bore with him the 
trials of hunger, weariness, and want of shelter ; they 
followed him through the lonely wilderness and the 
crowded street ; they saw his miracles in every variety 
of form, and listened to his discourses in public, as 
well as to his explanations in private." 

The rule that governed election to apostleship is 
clearly stated : " Wherefore of these men which have 
companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus 
went in and out among us, beginning from the bap- 
tism of John unto that same day that he was taken up 
from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us 
of his resurrection." f 

They were also aware of the danger and evil of 
being influenced by fables, and protested against the 
very charge made in modern times. " For we have 

* No assertion could be more distinct respecting this char- 
acter of the Gospels than those given by the writers them- 
selves. " And many other signs truly did Jesus in the pres- 
ence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But 
these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the 
Christ, the Son of God; and that, believing, ye might have 
life through his name.'' John xx. 30, 31. 

Less explicit, but taken in their connections scarcely less 
satisfactory, are the statements in Matt. i. 1, Mark i. 1, Luke 
i. 1-5. 

f Acts i. 21, 22. 

12 



I7§ GOD-MAN. 

not followed cunningly-devised fables,* when we made 
known unto you the power and coming of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty ; 

. . and this voice which came from heaven we 
heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.? f 

Such intimacy and caution simply preclude the 
idea of myths growing up under the face and eyes of 
the apostles. 

But there are difficulties in the path of the objector 
which are still more obstinate. 

The very existence of such a record and ideal as 
are found in the Gospels is proof that the character 
represented had a veritable, rather than mythical or 
legendary, existence. ' 

The Scandinavian legends, the wilder Hindoo myths, 
the shadows that flit across the divine pages of the 
earliest Hellenic history, present no parallels. 

For the men, who are said to have written the Gos- 
pels, or for any others, to have invented Jesus as seen 
in the New Testament, blending as he does a score of 
distinct aspects of moral character, including also hu- 
man and divine consciousness % in faultless propriety, — - 

* It is interesting and singular that the very word mtit/ios, 
from which myth is derived, is the one here used by the 
apostle, as if prophetically. Compare, also, 2 Cor. ii. 17, 
iv. 2. 

t 2 Peter i. 16-18. 

% The difficulties attending the invention of a character 
possessing both divine and human consciousness have been 
well shown in Mythical Theories of Christianity: "The his- 
torical Jesus was unquestionably crucified. How was a cru- 
cified man to be represented as divine? He died in agony. 
How was an artist to dramatize the divine in suffering? If 



MANIFESTAT ION. I 79 

nay, in complete unity, — making the perfection of the 
picture unique and transcendent, and the splendor of 
his personality, forever inimitable and unapproachable, 
would entitle the writers to be recognized as the only 
perfect prophets of ideal-moral purity who have ever 
lived, and absolutely the most mysterious personages 
the world has ever seen.* 

my hearers are not aware of the difficulties which would have 
attended the solution of these and kindred questions, I advise 
them to study the creation of the great Grecian dramatist, 
the Prometheus Vinctus of ^Eschylus, and compare it with 
the Jesus of the Gospels. I am sure that correct taste will 
pronounce that the creation of the fishermen of Galilee ut- 
terly transcends that of the genius of the great tragedian. 

£ * Nothing is more difficult, even in works of fiction, than 
to combine the attributes of holiness and benevolence as 
harmoniously acting in the same person. In living men they 
almost invariably jar. They possess them imperfectly, and 
one generally counteracts the action of the other. The diffi- 
culty of combining them is greatly increased, if the being 
uniting them is to be represented as both human and divine. 
Holiness and benevolence are, in fact, opposite sides of char- 
acter, and no more difficult problem can be presented to the 
imagination than to exhibit them as acting harmoniously in 
the same character. No question in theology is more embar- 
rassing than the mode in which they coexist in God." 

* The confession of Rousseau is, we dare say, familiar, 
but we venture to quote it : "It would be more incredible for 
a number of men to fabricate such a book, than that it should 
contain the account of a real life. No Jewish writers as- 
sumed the tone, none expressed the morality, of the gospel. 
It has such striking marks of truth, such inimitable marks, 
that the writer of such books would be a greater wonder 
than their hero." 

Jacobi states the case still more forcibly : " O myth ! O, 
how far exalted above all human mythology is this represen- 



I So GOD-MAN. 

The difficulties, then, in point of fact, standing in 
the way of converting or transmuting a young Jewish 
mechanic into a perfect universal and ideal Christ by 
means of either myth or legend, are now found to be 
enormous, overwhelming, and impossible.* 

And aside from this, the New Testament writers 
have stood the ordeal of such critical scrutiny, yes, an 
examination so like tests made face to face and eye to 
eye, for twenty-five years, that all reading and reasoning 
people, unless whelmed in prejudice, have concluded 
that further attempts to settle the historic problems of 
the Gospels by any form of "philosophic category" 
may do well enough for child's prattle ; nay, not for 
that even, — too much is involved ; but certainly that 
all such efforts ill become writers and preachers who 
claim to be worthy the notice of men who have eye- 
sight and common intelligence. 

The theory of invention or imposture need not de- 
tain us ; there is so little ground for it, that one won- 
ders that it has ever been advanced, or even enter- 
tained. The writers betray not the first indication 
of imposture. They neither enter into lengthy and 

tation of Christ! He who could create such fiction is able 
also to create worlds, call spirits into being, inspire life and 
the highest blessedness, by the simple power of his breath. 
The facts are conclusive, that one has here, not myth, but 
overwhelming reality and truth." 

* Were the theories of Baur, Strauss, and Renan true, 
the Gospels would not be what they are, "always true, 
always sure, always unique, and always consistent with 
themselves," but would be found abounding in debased style, 
defective morality, and wild exaggeration, such as appear in 
all mythical and legendary writing. 



MANIFESTATION. IOI 

defensive explanations of the various phenomena pre- 
sented, nor do they even attempt to expound, praise, 
or criticize their master's words or works : this they 
certainly would have done, had they been historic or 
literary inventors. 

They indulge in no sweeping generalities, but often 
recount the minutest details. They were mere observ- 
ers, not philosophers. Their frankness and genuine- 
ness resemble, in fact, those faces sometimes seen, 
which, from the first introduction, banish all thought 
of anything but purity and honesty. 

Nor did they, personally, lose sight of their moral 
attitude before God and men. u But Peter and John 
answered and said unto them, Whether it be right, in 
the sight of God, to hearken unto you more than unto 
God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things 
which we have seen and heard." * 

Falsehood flies from death-scenes. Yet these men 
gave in their testimony with crucifixion before their 
eyes. What stronger evidence that they would " rather 
die than lie " ? Besides, if they were untrue, they delib- 
erately exposed themselves alike to the wrath of men 
and God. They had nothing to gain by being false, 
and everything to lose. They were mad men or men 
of truth. 

Indeed, it is well nigh appalling to consider the 
attitude of these writers, if their work were one of 
fraud and imposture. Take for illustration the Gospel 
of John. Christ's secret colloquy with Nicodemus, 
the testimony of John the Baptist, the stupendous 
miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus, are there re- 

* Acts iv. 19, 20. 



152 GOD-MAN. 

corded. They are in John's peculiar style. They 
were facts, or they were manufactured out of John's 
imagination, and then stated for facts. If the last sup- 
position be correct, what a shock must be given to the 
moral character of the writer ! With such falsehood 
upon his lips he could never have written those later 
Epistles. He could never again lift his eyes to meet 
those of humanity henceforth riveted upon him. 

Taking all things into account, the facts recorded in 
the New Testament are more marvellous, if invented, 
than if true. The issue is the sharpest and most deci- 
sive possible ; these records are very truth, or the most 
triumphant, systematic, skillful, monstrous invention 
and lying ever conceived of. 

The writers have been charged, on the other hand, 
with being ignorant men, and were, in consequence, 
it is claimed, imposed upon. And they are also said 
to be self-contradictory. We grant the first supposi- 
tion, if desired ; but ignorance, in the sense of being 
illiterate, — the only sense allowed in this connection, 
— is not want of intelligence or common sense. Upon 
matters of simple observation, we cannot see why their 
testimony is not as reliable as if they had been Platos 
or Newtons. Even if they disagreed in some minor 
points, that would not destroy the essential reality of 
the thing seen or stated, on the ground of their illiter- 
acy, or any other. 

" That is a sound principle long since announced," 
says Grotius, u experience proves that scarcely any 
amount of variation, as to time or circumstances of a 
fact, in authors who record it, can be a sufficient 
ground for doubting its reality." 



MANIFESTATION. 183 

But these men, as a matter of fact, were not so illit- 
erate or contradictory as to allow discordant accounts 
or contradictory reports to appear in their writings. 
The harmony is really wonderful. Between the first 
three and fourth Gospels, the Acts, and the early 
Epistles, there is essential agreement, such as can be 
found in no other such body of literature in the 
world. 

Or change the line of thought, and let any one say 
what he is disposed respecting their ignorance, their 
falsehood, their blindness, and their self-contradiction, 
— one thing cannot be denied; these Galilean boat- 
men displayed a mighty something, — call it ignorance, 
or contradiction, or anything else, for u no word ever 
uttered has shaken the world like their rude speech." 

They repeated or originated words which have given 
new life to all nations, and have thrown an additional 
charm over all civilization. They came not as usurp- 
ers ; but those rude disciples have ruled in every de- 
partment of thought as if they had been born kings. . 

Denis Diderot, himself a leading free-thinker, ex- 
claimed, in a company of French infidels, " I defy 
you all — as many as are here — to prepare a tale 
so simple, and at the same time so sublime and so 
touching, as the tale of the passion and death of 
Jesus Christ, which produces the same effect, which 
makes a sensation as strong and as generally felt, and 
whose influence will be the same, after so many cen- 
turies." 

But there is another fact to be noticed. After the 
most thorough sifting, the statements of the evangelists 
are found to be in harmony with contemporaneous his- 



184 GOD-MAN. 

tory, chronology, geography, and topography. Early 
institutions and every department of archaeology are 
likewise confirmatory.* 

Lewis, Layard, Rawlinson, Champollion, Bott, 
Volney, Renan, Robinson, Thompson, Hengstenberg, 
return from their critical explorations in Bible lands, 
having, in some instances, been continually actuated by 
a sceptical spirit, with not one well-substantiated fact 
against Scripture authenticity or genuineness, f 

Notice another fact in this connection which cannot 
be too strongly insisted upon ; the evidence, we mean, 
" which has been wrung from the inevitable candor of 
reluctant adversaries." The writings of early scep- 
tics, the commentary of Basilides, the review of Mar- 
cion, and the works of Tiberius, Celsus, Porphyry, 
Julian, Hierocles, and Symmachus, against the Chris-, 
tians, never called in question the matters of fact 

* We might quote authorities without number; a few must 
suffice. Says Dr. Charming, speaking of the agreement be- 
tween sacred and profane history, "They [gospel narratives] 
interweave themselves with real history so naturally and 
intimately as to furnish no clew for detection, — as to exclude 
the appearance of incongruity and discordance. " 

"I have nothing," writes Lessing, "against the Christian 
religion. I believe it and hold it true so far and so strictly 
as one can believe and hold true anything whatever that is 
historical; for I can by no means gainsay it in its historical 
proofs." 

Says Renan, — and whose report can be relied upon by 
sceptics, if not his? — "The striking agreement between the 
texts and the places, the marvellous harmony of the Bible 
ideas with the country which serves them for a frame, was to 
me like a revelation." 

t See Appendix, J. 



MANIFESTATION. I&5 

recorded in the Gospels, and unhesitatingly admitted 
the evidence of all the great signa of Scripture. 

Celsus refers to the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and 
John, by name, and makes eighty allusions to, or quo- 
tations from, the New Testament writings. He men- 
tions Christ's birth from a virgin, in a small village 
of Judea, and speaks of the adoration of wise men 
from the east. He portrays the slaughter of the 
infants by the order of Herod, and the flight to Egypt, 
where he supposes Christ learned the charms of ma- 
gicians. He speaks of Christ being called the Word 
by his disciples, and recounts, with more or less ful- 
ness, the residence „of Jesus in Nazareth, the baptism, 
the descent of the Holy Spirit in the shape of a dove, 
the voice from heaven, the election of his disciples, 
his friendship with publicans and other low people, 
his cures of the lame and the blind, and raising of 
the dead, the betrayal of Judas, the denial of Peter, 
the principal circumstances in the history of the pas- 
sion, crucifixion, and resurrection.* 

It is true Celsus perverts, or abuses, most of these 
facts ; but, according to his own showing, they were 
then generally believed, and had always been tena- 
ciously held by all Christians. He denies none of the 
miracles of Jesus ; but, like the Jews, refers them to 
evil* spirits, and makes Jesus a magician and impostor. 

* In these allusions he mentions especially the fact of 
the blood flowing from the side of Jesus when crucified ; he 
speaks of the visit of the angels, and, in repeating the 
Christian narrative of the resurrection, he says that Christ, 
" after he was dead, arose and showed the marks of his 
punishment, and how his hands had been pierced." 



1 86 GOD-MAN. 

Julian also acquaints us with some of the leading 
miracles of Jesus. He speaks of the healing of the 
lame and blind, u the exorcising of demoniacs," and 
" the w T alking on the sea." 

Hierocles likewise admitted that Christ "raised 
from the dead" certain persons, and healed many 
who were sick. 

The Jewish accounts are to the same effect. The 
Talmudical literature, commencing in the second cen- 
tury, gives prominence to Christ's important miracles. 
" The later Jews," says Mr. Baden Powell, in Essays 
and Reviews, " adopted the strange legend of the 
Sepher Toldeth Jehsu, which describes his miracles 
substantially as in the Gospels, but say that he ob- 
tained his power by hiding himself in the temple, and 
possessing himself of the secret ineffable name, by 
virtue of which such wonders could be wrought." 

Mr. Powell quotes, also, from Limborch this state- 
ment of Orobio, a Jewish writer: "The Jews disbe- 
lieved, not because they denied that the works which 
are related in the Gospels were done by Jesus, but 
because they did not suffer themselves to be persuaded 
by them that Jesus was the Messiah." 

The same is true of all the apocryphal literature 
belonging to that period. 

The Apologies of Justin Martyr, the Epistles of Bar- 
nabas, the Letters of Ignatius and Polycarp, all prior 
to 140 A. D., are also confirmatory. There were 
doubts and controversies in the early church, but 
never a doubt expressed as to the truthfulness and 
reliableness of the Gospel reports respecting' fesus. 
Indeed, it had not occurred, either to Christian or 



MANIFESTATION. 1 87 

pagan, Jew or Gentile, down as late even as 426 
A. D., to doubt, or in any way to call in question, 
the main facts which Christianity presented, or upon 
which it rested. 

Here, then, we have an array of evidence supported 
by ecclesiastical, heretical, apocryphal, and antagonis- 
tic literature, which, in amount and character, is such 
as substantiates no other writings extant. 

Why is it not also logical and philosophical to 
introduce in the argument the convictions and beliefs 
of all devout Christians, from the apostles and fathers 
down to the present time, as confirmatory, presump- 
tive, or moral evidence? 

The statement of the case is this: the New Testa- 
ment teachings, as a whole, have long since been 
admitted by the great body of intelligent men and 
women throughout Christendom, whether experimen- 
tal Christians or not, to be internally probable, and 
singularly adapted to human want; they clearly set 
forth the fundamental truths of natural religion, and 
are remarkable for enjoining every virtue taught by 
all the world's philosophers, without allowing their 
vices. 

And in addition to this, " The majority of those 
who call themselves Christian worshippers, every time 
they assemble, renew the profession of their faith in 
the leading facts which this history records. They 
listen, perhaps, to some extract from the narrative 
whose interest never tires. Every first day of the 
week is but a renewed proclamation of Easter, — that 
Christ did, in fact, rise from the dead. Every Chris- 
tian prayer and song repeats this faith. Every child 



155 GOD-MAN. 

in a Christian household is first bewildered, and then 
elevated and entranced, by the sweet story of the Lord 
Christ, who was obedient to his parents, and dwelt in 
Nazareth, and at twelve years old was left alone in 
Jerusalem. Old age, when it tires of everything else, 
and has had enough of this life, is never tired of the 
story that records the w 7 ords that were spoken by 
Jesus. The land where this history was enacted is 
clothed by the imagination with singular attractions, 
because the Christian history is believed to be true." 

Now, would it not seem to be impossible, during so 
many years, nay, centuries, to palm off upon so many 
multitudes of thoughtful and intelligent men, for what 
is true, that which is palpably or essentially false? 
If such a thing be possible, then faith in human judg- 
p ment and common sense is a delusion greater by far 
than that of the narrative which has deceived them. 

But w T e must pause, sum up the points made, and 
seek a conclusion. When we consider the character 
of the writers, and the nature of their writings ; when 
w r e enumerate the difficulties standing in the way of 
accounting for the records upon the ground of myth, 
legend, imposture, or ignorance ; when we discover 
their wonderful harmony with existing data, and per- 
fect agreement with every fresh discovery; when we 
find confirmatory testimony on all hands, no early 
sceutic assailing the facts in the life of Jesus, and no 
early defender of the Christian faith ever feeling him- 
Self called upon, or ever attempting, to offer proof of 
the facts as facts ; nay, more, when we have a portrait 
of Jesus projected upon profane history, including the 
facts and miracles of his life, substantially harmonious 



MANIFESTATION. 1 89 

with the whole body of scriptural representation, and 
so reasonable and self-consistent as to answer the 
highest ideal of all true philosophy, and so adapted 
to human wants, and so identical with the voice of 
Christian experience and consciousness as to be im- 
plicitly believed by the most devout minds of all 
times, — do not these evidences and probabilities of the 
authenticity of the New Testament narratives reach 
the very climax of absolute moral certainty? And 
whatever be the attacks upon them, do they not re- 
main serene and sublime in their integrity, like the 
great character who spoke the words and performed 
the deeds? 



III. 

HUMANITY OF JESUS; FACTS AND 
OPINIONS. 



THAT Jesus possessed human nature lies upon the 
face of all the various accounts respecting him. 
That he was not spirit, nor angel, but veritable human 
flesh and blood ; whatever his words or deeds import, 
that he stood as a man among men ; in fact, that he 
was as much a man as any disciple who followed him, 
and that God was his Father as much and the same as 
he is our Father, — can be denied by no one upon a 
candid critical or casual examination of his biog- 
raphy. 

We can, therefore, but agree with Stephen Farley, 
when he says that the " apostle Paul had no doubts " 
as to the humanity of Jesus, and that " our Lord was 
a man in all the sinless aspects of humanity." 

If Mr. Farley will allow a parenthesis of only four 
words, we will indorse his stronger statement that 
u the fact is plain and indubitable that Jesus was a 
man, and" {as to his humanity) " nothing more than 
a man." 

190 



MANIFESTATION. I9I 

Following the records, we do not see that it is possi- 
ble for any different conclusion to be reached. It is 
the repeated affirmation of the Gospels that Jesus was 
born of a woman. Mary, his mother, is represented, 
not as." a sort of divinity born of the clouds," but a 
devoted mother, and a pure, truthful, honest, and faith- 
ful daughter of Abraham. The child she bore is pre- 
sented in the gospel narrative as a child, which, in all 
the helplessness of human childhood, " grew, and the 
grace of God was upon him." * His brethren are referred 
to ; f also his sisters. I His obedience to parental au- 
thority, § his baptism, || the descent of the Spirit upon 
him,** his temptation, || his life of prayer, JJ his 
weariness, hunger, §§ and thirst, |||| his susceptibility 
to joy and sadness, ## * those occasional states of mind 
which bordered upon gloom and hopelessness, ftt 
his real prostration and helplessness in the hour of 
death ; jj| these, together with his whole earthly life, 
give daily proofs of actual humanity, and unqualifiedly 
have no meaning unless Jesus were really and truly 
man. 

We pass from .statements of fact to statements of 
opinion. The New Testament writers, both in the 

* Luke ii. 40. f Luke viii. 19. J Matt. xiii. 56. 

§ Luke ii. 51. || Matt. iii. 13-16. ** John i. 32. 

tt Matt. iv. 1. 

It Mark i. 35, vii. 34. John iv. 6-8, 
§§ Matt. iv. 2. Illl Johniv. 7; xix. 28. 

*** John ii. 17 ; Mark viii. 12 ; Luke xix. 41 ; John xi. 33-38. 
tft Matt. xxvi. 38; John xii. 20-27. 

Jtt Matt, xxvii. 45-50; Mark xv. 33-37; Lukexxiii. 44-46; 
John xix. 30. 



I92 GOD-MAN. 

Gospels and in the Epistles, state certain opinions, 
which they base, in some instances, upon facts, and 
in others upon professed revelations. That is, these 
men claimed to be supernaturally inspired in the for- 
mation or expression of their opinions ; and what good 
reason have we for disputing their honesty, or the 
facts ? 

Paul's opinion respecting the human nature of 
Jesus, apart from all other considerations, will, we 
think, be indorsed by every one. The following state- 
ments from his pen cannot be easily misunderstood : — 

" For there is one God, and one Mediator between 
God and men, the man Christ Jesus ; * " And the gift 
by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ ;f " For 
since by man came death, by man came also the resur- 
rection of the dead ; " I u For verily he took not on him 
the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of 
Abraham ; " § and " God sent forth his Son, born of a 
woman," " in the similitude of sinful flesh." || 

There are many other passages ; but if these are not 
sufficient to show that Paul taught that Jesus had a real 
human body and nature, and that his physical life was 
thoroughly human, and dependent upon God, then we 
know not what amount of evidence would be necessary 
to produce conviction. 

We have also the opinion of others. Matthew says 
that Jesus was the " first-born son " of Mary.** John 
says, " The Word was made flesh ; "ft an d Peter, on 
the day of Pentecost, describes Jesus of Nazareth as 
" a man approved of God." JJ 

* 1 Tim. ii. 5. f Rom. v. 15. J 1 Cor. xv. 21. 

§ Heb. ii. 16. || Gal. iv. 4; Rom. viii. 3. 

** Matt. i. 25. ft John i. 14. JJ Acts ii. 22. 



MANIFESTATION. 1 93 

In reaching our conclusion, we are not, however, 
dependent upon the use of terms merely. 

The two constituent parts of human nature, body and 
soul, are repeatedly ascribed to Jesus.* Also the affec- 
tions and spiritual qualities, together with the moral and 
animal nature of humanity, were, in the opinion of his 
contemporaries, as much parts of the constitution of 
Jesus as they were parts of their own. He had so 
manifestly the bearing and appearance of a man, that 
general public conduct and opinion ever betray their 
conviction of the fact. " This is he," said John the Bap- 
tist, u of whom I said, After me cometh a man which 
is preferred before me." 7 " Come," said the woman 
of Samaria, " see a man which told me all things that 
ever I did." J U A man that is called Jesus made 
clay," said the blind born, " and anointed mine eyes." § 
4w Whence hath this man these things? " inquired they 
of his native? village. || 

The Scribes and Pharisees saw clearly enough the 
humanity of Jesus, refusing, for a time, to see anything 
greater. u This man," they said, u is not of God." ** 
4 * The Scribes said, This man blasphemeth." ff " Thou, 
being a man, makest thyself God." H " This man, 
if he were a prophet, would have known." §§ " Away 
with this man ! " |||| exclaimed the rulers and mob, upon 
the day of his crucifixion ; and, "This man calleth for 
Elias," *** said those who stood near the cross. It was 

* Luke xxiv. 39; Matt. xx. 28; John xii. 27; Col. i. 22 ; 1 
Peter iv. 1. 

f John i. 30. X John iv. 29. § John ix. 11. || Mark vi. 2. 

** John ix. 16. ff Matt. ix. 3. Xt John x. 33. 

§§ Luke vii. 39. |||j John xix. 15. *** Matt, xxvii. 47. 

13 



194 GOD-MAN. . 

Pilate who " asketh whether the man were a Gali- 
lean," * and who, after a thorough examination, af- 
firmed, " I find no fault in this man," f and also said, 
" Behold the man ! " J 

It is a man that the people met in the courts of the 
temple and among the hills of Galilee. It is a man 
that they saw walking among scenes of distress, lead- 
ing his disciples, led to the trial, and going to the 
cross. It is a man whom, with perfect freedom, the 
people questioned. It is a man whom the disciples 
expostulated with, rebuked, betrayed, and forsook. It 
was the physical body of a man which they came to 
embalm, and it was the physical body of a man whom 
they could only with the greatest difficulty believe had 
risen from the dead. 

It would seem, then, that we must deny common sense 
and eyesight, and common ear-hearing, to this multi- 
tude of witnesses, or else receive their testimony as to 
the veritable human nature and appearance of Jesus, 
the man. 

But the last, and, to us, unanswerable evidence that 
Jesus Christ was man, rests upon his personal testi- 
mony. In introducing this evidence, we fully indorse 
President Eliot. 

u The principal source of knowledge concerning 
Jesus Christ must evidently be his testimony of him- 
self. It is possible that his disciples were mistaken in 
their estimate of him, as we know they were during a 
great part of their lives ; but his record of himself 
must be received as true. Even those who only admit 
that lie was an honest, truth-telling man, must either 

* Luke xxiii.6. f Luke xxiii. 4. % John xix. 5. 



MANIFESTATION. 1 95 

modify that admission, or must equally admit that 
what he said of himself must be believed. But those 
who assent to his divine authority have committed 
themselves still more fully, and are no longer at liberty 
to question the truthfulness of his claims. It seems to 
me, that, among Christians, we may narrow down this 
question concerning Christ to the simple inquiry, 
4 What did he himself say? ,,, 

Yes, " what did he himself say? " is a fair inquiry, 
and a thorough test of the entire question. 

Take, for illustration, the name which Jesns employs 
in preference to any other — u Son of Man." This he 
applies to himself in nearly fifty instances, and under so 
great variety of circumstances and in such singular 
connections, that no grounds are left upon which to 
deny that the title unites him forever, in bonds the most 
real and intimate, not with angels or archangels, but 
with our common humanity. 

But as before, so in this case, we are not dependent 
upon the use of a single term. Upward of thirty times 
in the Gospel of John alone, does Jesus speak of God 
as, " my Father." In the following confessions, also, 
taken in their connections, we. cannot fail to see the 
attitude of pure humanity : — 

" My Father is greater than I ; " * " Neither came I 
of myself, but he sent me ; " f "I can of mine own 
self do nothing; " % " The words that I speak unto 
you, I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwell- 
eth in me, he doeth the works ; " § " But go to my 
brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father 
and your Father, and to my God and your God." || 

* John xiv. 28. f John viii. 42. J John v. 30. 

§ John xiv. 10. || John xx. 17. 



I96 GOD-MAN. 

The frequent allusions to himself as " Son of David," 
his acknowledgment of dependence,* his confession 
of limited knowledge,f his last formal and recorded 
prayer,j which breathes throughout the sentiments 
and sympathies of a human heart, and his interview 
with the disciples after his resurrection, when he said 
unto them, u Why are ye troubled, and why do 
thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and 
my feet, that it is I myself: handle me and see : for a 
spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have ; " § 
all these, in connection with the gospel narratives 
and public opinions, present Jesus to the world in 
possession of a clear type of human consciousness, and 
of human nature. 

While the Christian is unable to become relatively 
enthusiastic upon the subject of Christ's humanity, 
still he must admit that t; if the evidence is not over- 
whelming that Christ was perfectly man, he cannot 
conceive it possible that any point in theology or mor- 
als is capable of being established." 

* John v. 19. f Mark xiii. 32. J John xvii. 

§ Luke xxiv. 38, 39. 



DIVINITY OF JESUS; RECORDED 
FACTS. 



AN imposing vestibule is in perfect keeping with 
an imposing palace. Were Jesus divine, as well 
as human, while the introduction to his humanity 
might take place in a stable, the introduction to his 
deity ought to be made amid transactions which pass 
entirely beyond the range of the ordinary and human. 

That Mary of Nazareth received an announcement* 
so remarkable as to evoke a song of assurance and 
faith, should be a matter of no surprise ; but had it 
been otherwise, all might be filled with apprehension, 
for the palace had then been destitute of an appro- 
priate vestibule. 

The same is true of the vivid anticipation of the 
part to be performed by John the Baptist, the son of 
Zacharias,-)* the song of Simeon, J Anna's response, § 
the angel chorus, || and the brilliant star,** together 

* Luke i. 32, 33; Luke i. 54, 55. f Luke i. 68-79. 

X Luke ii. 29-32. § Luke ii. 38. 

|| Luke ii. 13. ** Matt. ii. 9. 

197 



I98 GOD-MAX. 

with Herod's savage edicts.* That is, there is man- 
ifest propriety in these attendant events. From the 
nature of the case, they disclose the delight of the 
godly and the terror of the godless, who unite in their 
attestation of the conviction that the time and the One 
had come. 

If Jesus were the Son of God because begotten 
of the Holy Ghost ; t if Mary, as the representative 
of humanity, gave him 'to the world, a first-born ; | 
if he were the child upon whose shoulder the gov- 
ernment shall be placed ; if he be the one whose 
name shall be called a Wonderful, Counsellor, the 
mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of 
Peace ; " § if, in fine, there is wrapped up in that 
cradled infant the Strangler of the world's Evil, and 
the Divine Governor to whose government there shall 
never be an end, — then the absence of miracles would 
be a wonder greater than their presence. 

Referring to the records, we find that the " first 
retinue of this king of souls " was a company of 
shepherds. They were pious men ; they had been 
searching and waiting. While at their occupation, 
during the deep stillness of a quiet night, they heard 
among the very hills surrounding them a song such 
as earth at no other time had heard. They rose, and 
under supernatural guidance these men entered the 
stable, saw a young child, its mother, and her hus- 
band, knelt, and worshipped — that babe ! 

Later, wise men, philosophers from Persia, appeared. 
They were doubtless teachers of the religion of Zoro- 

* Matt. ii. 16. f Luke i. 35. 

% Luke ii. 7. § Is>a. ix. 6. 



MANIFESTATION. 1 99 

aster, and were most certainly men of great faith ; per- 
haps no less so than Abraham, when he left his home 
in Mesopotamia for the distant land of promise. These 
wise men from a land of wisdom, protected by study 
and culture against human deceit, entered the stable, 
drew near, knelt at the manger, and worshipped the 
babel With silent joy they spread their rich offerings 
before this child and its mother. These were the first 
Christmas gifts the world had»seen, and were, if they 
mean anything, the most significant. 

And what ! That babe an ordinary child, of ob- 
scure parentage, from a despised village, poverty 
his recommendation, with no angel to announce him, 
and no star to witness for him, and no Spirit of God 
to present and plead his cause in the heart-conscious- 
ness of these men? Then were not the visiting shep- 
herds and Persian wise men, madmen or fools? 

Into what a network of difficulties is sceptical phi- 
losophy entangled by these historic connections and. 
harmonies ! 

The curtain concealing the life of Jesus was not 
again lifted until he was twelve years of age. At that 
time, with his parents, and a large company from 
Nazareth and its neighborhood, he visited Jerusalem. 

His conduct, while in the city, has no parallel. It 
seems that to him, as to no other, the sight of those 
worshipping multitudes was crowded with strange 
import. He at once separated himself from parents 
and companions. He visited the temple. Here he, 
no doubt, saw the sacrificial offerings waiting to be 
slaughtered. We can almost follow the sensitive 
youth, as he drew near, looked upon the bloody knife, 



200 GOD-MAN. 

and heard the moan of the innocent victim. Can he 
foresee that the knife, and the blood, and the moan, 
are meant for him, — the image of his own agony, 
twenty years hence? Should we be surprised to hear, 
"Father, if it be possible," escape his lips? 

That visit to the temple is justly represented as the 
enactment of his life. He forgot, at the end of the al- 
lotted time, to return with his parents. He visited those 
parts of the temple where the most distinguished men 
of the nation were assembled. He questioned them ; 
he answered them ; he probed them, to know if they 
understood the meaning of all those things he had 
seen. No one of those Rabbi could cope with his 
questions, or confound him with theirs. They were 
astonished ; other discussions ceased ; other thoughts 
were arrested ; other speech was silenced ; and upon 
that boy of twelve years every eye was fixed, and held 
immovable, as by divine charms. His mother re- 
turned, gently chided him, and received a singular 
reply : " Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's 
business? " And yet this language, so unaccountable 
in one whom the w@rld regards as a model son, and 
so disrespectful on the lips of any other, does not 
seem out of place when spoken by him. No child 
ever took advantage of it. It seems, as he uttered it, 
the embodiment of appropriateness. 

Nor less appropriate is the attitude he assumes the 
next moment, as, in the relation of a dutiful son, he 
returned with his parents to his humble home in 
Nazareth. 

He a child like other children ? Nay, that bit of his 
boyhood history suggests a something which is amply 



MANIFESTATION. 201 

sufficient to demolish, at a single blow, the modern 
sceptical theory which beholds in Christ only a sharp, 
successful, calculating leader and reformer of the peo- 
ple. His greatness dawned upon him, not in his vig- 
orous and " ambitious" manhood, but in his innocent 
childhood. 

How strangely men carry about them the insignia 
of their rank ! Words that are spoken, and deeds 
that are performed, by one man, are allowed and com- 
mended, which would ill become another. The 
words and deeds of Jesus, which would be blasphemy 
and sacrilege in another — why do they so well com- 
port with all our thoughts of him ? * 

Recall another scene, eighteen years later. Jesus 
was then in the prime of life. He has been repre- 
sented as tall in person, graceful, healthful, manly, 
and in every respect a perfect model of humanity, as, 
doubtless, he was. Walking by the Sea of Galilee, 
he saw two fishermen engaged in their vocation, and 

* Harris carries the thought still farther, including the 
miracles. " However incredible the Scripture miracles would 
seem in any other book, we are never conscious of surprise, 
never regard them as incredible, incongruous, or unexpected, 
when we read of them in the Bible. The central thought, 
that this is the record of God's feelings and acts in saving 
men, is so vast, the truths opened to us are so stupendous, 
the scene disclosed so sublime, every step in the progress- 
ing story is so manifestly the step of the Almighty, that 
these great miracles harmonize with the grandeur of the 
whole revelation ; they seem to us no more surprising or 
incredible than the rainbow with which God adorns the re- 
tiring storm, or the stars with which he nightly gems the 
sky." 



202 GOD-MAN. 

he said unto them, " Follow me, and I will make you 
fishers of men." They forsook all. The world dwin- 
dled, in a moment, into nothingness. They followed 
him, clung to him, suffered with him, and died for 
him. Shortly after, multitudes followed. He led 
them to a mountain, and then — to those rough people 
— this personage, without education, reputed son of 
a carpenter, uttered words— what words! Words 
never equalled by mortal man ! Words which have 
filled Parker, Renan, Strauss, Paulus, the free-thinkers 
of all countries, with amazement.* 

The limits of our discussion forbid a full length 
sketch of the life of Jesus ; but we may glance at the 
scenes of a single day or two. 

It is Professor Porson who says that he a would 
rather see a single copy of a daily newspaper of an- 
cient Athens, than read all the commentaries upon the 
Grecian tragedies that have ever been written." The 
reason is, that one would thereby be more fully ad- 
mitted than by any other means into the conditions, 
achievements, and attainments of the leaders and the 
people. 

"It is worthy of remark," says President Way land, 
u that we are favored with a larger portion of this 
kind of information respecting Jesus of Nazareth, than 
of almost any other distinguished person that has ever 
lived." For this the world cannot be too deeply 
grateful. 

The day we select to illustrate our purpose is Tues- 
day of the Last Passover, and during the last full 
week of Jesus' life. The previous night of Monday 

* Appendix, K. 



MANIFEST AT I OX. 20^ 

had been passed amQng his friends in Bethany. The 
first rays of the morning light found him on his way 
to the temple. No time could be lost. Much was to 
be done. i4 Early must he go, late return/' As the 
people began to assemble, he commenced his public 
teachings of the Truth, the -Way, and the Life. Very 
soon he was waited upon by a formal deputation 
from the Sanhedrim, who were sent to ask two ques- 
tions. First, " By what authority doest thou these 
things ?" and, second, "Who gave thee this au- 
thority ? " * 

But Jesus was not appalled, or even disturbed by 
their presence, or questions. He spoke by no human 
authority, and was in no haste to tell them whence his 
authority. Question, rather, must be met by question. 
Let the Jewish rulers first reply to him, and then, in 
turn, shall answer be given them. "Jesus answered 
and said unto them, I also will ask you one thing, which 
if ye tell me, I will likewise tell you by what authority 
I do these things. The baptism of John, whence was 
it? from heaven, or of men? " f 

They were baffled. They could not answer ; and, 
retiring from his presence, they said among them- 
selves, " If we shall say, From heaven, he will say 
unto us, Why did ye not then believe him? But if 
we shall say, Of men, we fear the people ; for all hold 
John as a prophet." 

The alternatives were shrewdly weighed and well 
put by these men of rare subtlety and practical dialec- 
tics, but were followed with the necessary admission, 
" We cannot tell." " Neither tell I you by what au- 

* Matt. xxi. 23. f Matt. xxi. 24. 25. 



204 GOD-MAN. 

thority I do these things," was thp straightforward and 
uncompromising reply of the Teacher. Without paus- 
ing, he thereupon stated to them three parables. First, 
that of the two sons of the husbandman, the one of 
whom said, " I go, sir," and went not ; the other of 
whom said, " I will not go," but afterwards went.* 

The parable was so nicely wrought, that his ene- 
mies declared their own guilt before they were aware 
of it ; and Jesus, taking the words from their lips, pro- 
nounced their unmitigated sentence, thus : " I say unto 
you that the publicans and harlots" (the worst people 
in society) " go into the kingdom of God before you." 

u Hear another parable," he continued. u There 
was a certain householder." The parable is recog- 
nized as that of the wicked husbandmen. f In it 
Christ declared the punishment of these Jews as ex- 
plicitly as he had previously pronounced their sen- 
tence of condemnation. 

The third parable was that of the " marriage of the 
king's son," f in which he directly and clearly set forth 
the judgment of Jerusalem, and the establishment of 
the new theocracy of the kingdom of God. 

But before these parables were completed, the Scribes 
and Pharisees, perceiving he spoke of them, were 
thirsting for his blood, and death, and were only pre- 
vented from springing upon him, like hungry wolves, 
through fear of those poor but honest people, who 
stood, on the day in question, as the body-guard of 
Jesus, listening to the gracious words that fell from his 
lips, and were so thrilled by them that they were ready 
to die in his defence. 

* Matt. xxi. 28, seq. f Matt. xxi. 33, seq. J Matt. xxii. 1, seq. 



MANIFESTATION. 205 

One course remained open to these enemies, that 
of bringing a legal suit against him by entrapping 
him in his speech ; a sort of confession that their 
artifice had been thus far baffled, and their hypoc- 
risy worsted. The plot was this : to call a conven- 
tion of the Pharisees and Herodians in some ad- 
joining room of the temple, and devise a question 
which required Yes, or No, for the answer, and 
which, answered either by Yes, or No, would doom 
him to death. A singular convention ; made up of 
parties who could not tolerate one another on ordi- 
nary occasions. The bitterest enemies of Rome, and 
the Roman political party, u religious hypocrisy," 
fc " political craft," and " hierarchical prejudice," uniting 
in a fraternal embrace to crush this supposed Nazarene 
intruder. What a coalition ! u What amazinsr recon- 
ciliations are wrought by a common hatred ! " 

As might be expected from such a body, they 
arranged one of the most perplexing and dangerous 
questions that could then have been devised. To 
better conceal their purpose, they declined to go be- 
fore him themselves, as in the former instance, but 
sent a special deputation, consisting of their disciples, 
young and inexperienced persons ; students of their 
religion, in fact. They appeared in the guise of mere 
inquirers concerning a question of conscience. They 
were full of apparent integrity, clothed with apparent 
humility, and spoke with the profoundest courtesy. 
" Master," they said, " we know that thou art true, 
and teachest the w T ay of God in truth ; neither carest 
thou for any man, for thou regardest not the person 



206 GOD-MAN. 

of men. Tell us, therefore; what thinkest thou? Is 
it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?" * 

Death was concealed in either answer, if direct. 

Around them were spread the temple courts and 
thronging worshippers of the God of Israel. An in- 
discreet answer would have easilv stirred these irri- 
tated and excitable masses that surrounded him into a 
furious mob. The popular mind is friend or foe at a 
single step. 

But yonder stood the palace of the first Herod, and 
in front was frowning the tower of Antonia. The one 
of these conditions demanded an unqualified Nay to 
the question, on pain of death. The other demanded 
Yea, on the same condition. 

The eye of that mysterious Being before whom the 
delegation stood had quickly pierced their very hearts, 
and his answer was ready. " Why tempt ye me, ye 
hypocrites? Show me the tribute money. And they 
brought unto him a penny. And he said unto them, 
Whose is this image and superscription? They say 
unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render, 
therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, 
and unto God the things that are God's, f 

The penny, he would say, is Caesar's ; it has his mark 
upon it ; render it to him. But the soul is God's; it 
has his mark upon it ; render it to him. Love and 
obey God, or you die ; pay tribute to Caesar, or you 
will sutler civil disaster, and witness the sudden and 
terrible fall pf Jerusalem. 

Deceit and artifice were nipped in the bud. The 
inquirers were instantly silenced, and, tendering him 

* Matt. xxii. 16, 17. f Matt. xxii. 18-21. 



MANIFESTATION. 20/ 

their " reluctant homage of wonder/' quietly went 
their way. " They marvelled at his answer," says 
the evangelist, " and held their peace." * 

PVdling in this attempt, the Scribes and Elders or- 
ganized another strange convention, consisting, this 
time, of Pharisees and Sadducees, who, if possible, 
had less in common than the Pharisees and Hero- 
dians. The Sadducees were the ones sent. It was 
expected that upon religious questions they might suc- 
ceed where, in political questions, the Pharisees and 
Herodians had failed. Their approach and intention 
were concealed under a plausible case of religious dif- 
ficulty. A woman had seven husbands in this world ; 
whose shall she be in the next? was the question, f 
The case was not happily devised, and was coarsely 
propounded. It was asked with the evident expecta- 
tion, however, that the answer of Jesus might some- 
how compromise him, either with the ruling Pharisees 
or the common people. 

It is difficult, perhaps impossible, for us fully to 
appreciate the critical position in which this per- 
sonage from Nazareth was placed. Bear in mind, 
he was a young man, and his opposers were men of 
age and experience. The ideas of the nation were 
exceedingly conservative, and religious opinions were 
vigorously defended by the dominant class against all 
innovation. " He who even forgets a single point of 
doctrine," said Gamaliel, " may be esteemed on the 
road to ruin." It was an accredited and popular 
maxim, that " He who gives explanations not in con- 
formity with traditions, shall have no part in the fu- 

* Luke xxii. 26. f Matt. xxii. 23, seq. 



208 GOD-MAN. 

tnre world, even though he have done many good 
works." * 

Such were the circumstances and conditions sur- 
rounding Jesus when waited upon by these keen, 
illiberal, and sceptical Sadducees. 

The question that had been asked him was designed 
as a rigid test. He listened, heard them through, 
and then, without giving a direct answer, told those 
men who confidently denied future existence, that, with 
all their pretence to wisdom and philosophy, they were 
grossly ignorant, full of error, not knowing the Scrip- 
tures, or the power of God, which is able to make 
men live forever, even as the equals of angels. 

The truths he presented were so new in form, yet 
so convincing, that the multitudes were filled with 
amazement. The Sadducees withdrew, acknowl- 
edging their defeat, and the people, says the evan- 
gelist, " were astonished at his doctrine."-)* 

But one more, and a last, attempt was made to in- 
snare him. We read, " But when the Pharisees had 
heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they 
were gathered together." J What? Another con- 
spiracy ! Is it not enough that they had failed once, 
tw r ice, yea, thrice, in their heartless and malignant 
onslaughts? Would not common chivalry have done 
him honor, rather than continue to plot his overthrow? 
So blinded and unfeeling were they, his enemies! 

They selected for their agent in this attack a prom- 

* Pirke Aboth. The summary of the moral portion of the 
Talmud. 

f Matt. xxii. 3$. J Matt. xxii. 44. 



MANIFESTATION. 2<X) 

inent lawyer of the city, delegating him to ask a ques- 
tion concerning the commandments. 

There is something in the bearing of the lawyer 
which indicates a gentleman of refinement. There is 
" a sort of consciousness of the idle nature of all that 
casuistry and formality of which his question is the 
exponent." But it is a part of his professional busi- 
ness to be the servant of his clients, and as a politician, 
he must stand by his party constituents. He sub- 
serves, therefore, their bidding, and inquires, u Which 
is the great commandment of the law ? " The remain- 
ing account, as given in Mark's Gospel, is concise and 
graphic. 

" And Jesus answered him, The first of all the com- 
mandments is, Hear, O Israel ; the Lord our God is 
one Lord : and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, 
and with all thy strength : this the first commandment. 
And the second is like, namely, this : Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself: there is none other commandment 
greater than these. And the Scribe said unto him, 
Well, Master, thou hast said the truth : for there is one 
God ; and there is none other but he : and to love him 
with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and 
with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to 
love his neighbor as himself, is more than all whole 
burnt-offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw 
that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou 
art not far from the kingdom of God." * 

How penetrating the reply, and at the same time 

* Mark xii. 29-34. 

H 



2IO GOD-MAN. 

how delicate and gracious the concluding declaration 
of the Teacher ! 

The lawyer was deeply moved. Never before 
had he felt the force of the law of God, and the 
love of one's neighbor when placed upon the same 
sublime footing. He felt that his design had been 
completely traversed by a wisdom never before en- 
countered. The church tradition is, that the lawyer 
from that date abandoned his former associates, and 
openly espoused the doctrines of Jesus ; and it is also 
stated that the Pharisees were paralyzed by his deser- 
tion from their ranks. At all events, there is a sudden 
pause in their proceedings. Matters had gone on with 
them from bad to worse. Every moment saw the in- 
fluence of Jesus rising in public estimation, and their 
own falling. He had thwarted and worsted them first 
and last, and completely. Their wits were at an end. 
They returned, those Scribes and Pharisees, those 
Sadducees and Herodians, from their private council- 
halls, and gathered about this strange being who had 
shown himself superior to every political and religious 
combination brought against him. His calm dignity 
awed every one into silence. Those who had thought 
to find in him a trickster or a fanatic, found themselves, 
unexpectedly, in the presence of one who thrilled them 
into profoundest veneration. The masses were awe- 
struck by his unexplained majesty. And while every 
eye was fixed, and while the evening shadows were 
closing about the temple, he broke the suppressed 
silence with this simple but suggestive question : 
" What think ye of Christ? whose son is he?" * 

* Matt. xxii. 42. 



MANIFESTATION. 211 

The inquiry issuing from the preceding events of 
the day in question, and enforced by all he had said 
and done for nearly three years, bore a significance 
not easily evaded or soon forgotten. His foes could 
have refused an answer, but they stammered forth, 
" The son of David." They had answered correctly. 
The Messiah must be the son of David. The sub- 
stance of Christ's reply is this : But what can David 
mean when he calls him Lord ? How can he be son 
and Lord, unless there be a mingling or union of the 
divine and human? To this question no answer was 
attempted. As the silent gaze of those men met the 
eye of the Questioner, they began to quail before him. 
They seemed to feel that they were looking into a soul 
that was greater than any other, and that had never 
sinned. May it not be that they then felt for the first 
time " the full power of immaculate virtue " ? Such 
the record. Has the like before or since been heard of ? 

How Jesus rose up on that occasion to answer every 
condition demanded ! What other so perfect illustra- 
tion of Emerson's partial faith? "We have a half- 
belief, ,, he says, " that the person is possible who can 
counterpoise all other persons." Did not Jesus thus 
more than counterpoise the scores opposed? "We 
believe," continues this philosophical prophet, " that 
there may be a man who is a match for events, — one 
who never found his match, — against whom other men 
being dashed are broken, — one of inexhaustible per- 
sonal resources, who can give you any odds and beat 
you. What we really wish for is a mind equal to 
any exigency." 

May be, does Emerson say? Why not say there 



2 1 2 GOD-MAN. 

has been one such, only one such, and he that — 
artisan. 

Did he not, in matters involving the most delicate 
and difficult questions of civil polity, national religion, 
and moral law, withstand successfully, from morning 
light until evening shade, the concentrated learning, 
philosophy, wit, and malice of a whole nation's keenest 
representatives? Is there nothing here to excite our 
wonder? or what more of a " match " can philosophy 
require ? 

But the account of his day's work is not yet com- 
pleted. Jesus did not hurry away from those scenes to 
feed, as most would have done, upon his successes and 
triumphs ; there was no time for complaints or self-con- 
gratulations. His enemies must first listen to just but 
awful warnings. Their secret lives and ungodly prac- 
tices, including their robberies of widows' houses, their 
rapacious, hypocritical, and bloodthirsty conduct, and 
their empty titles, must be laid bare before their eyes 
ere the Reformer can dismiss them ; and they must 
hear, too, in language of deepest pathos, that, in con- 
sequence of these things, the utter desolation of their 
beloved Jerusalem is at hand. 

In his closing words " the Accused, raising himself 
to his full height, becomes, in his turn, the accuser ; 
like the hero of the Old Testament, he breaks like 
tow the interwoven bonds in which perverse sophists 
have sought to bind him, and crushes his foes with 
words more terrible than thunderbolts, which strike 
sudden light into the dark crevices of their hearts, 
and tear in shreds the veil of their mendacious pre- 
tences." 



MANIFESTATION. 213 

We look through the world's literature in vain for 
anything half so scathing and awful. 

Those malignant priests and doctors were held up 
to such derision before the people, that now, after 
eighteen hundred years, we tremble while reading the 
language employed.* 

The remaining words and deeds of that day, how- 
ever, show that Jesus was not, in these moments of 
contention, beside himself. The composure with which 
the transition to other subjects was made is no less aston- 

* It was to these denunciations Ren an refers when saving, 
" Others but graze the skin ; he carries fire and madness into 
the marrow and bones." 

True it is, as De Pressense remarks, "that Pharisaism has 
never recovered from the wound it received that day in the 
temple of Jerusalem ; formalistic hypocrisy, ever since that 
memorable discourse, has walked the world under a tattered 
veil. All the judgments pronounced against Jesus in the 
synagogue fail to counterbalance that terrible sentence with 
which he branded it, and which he left with it as his last fare- 
well." 

Recalling the circumstances, listen: " But woe unto you, 
Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the king- 
dom of heaven against men ; for ye neither go in yourselves, 
neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto 
you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' 
houses, and for a pretence make long prayer; therefore ye 
shall receive the greater damnation. Woe unto you, Scribes 
and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye compass sea and land to 
make one proselyte ; and when he is made, ye make him two- 
fold more the child of hell than yourselves. Woe unto you, 
ye blind guides ! which say, Whosever shall swear by the tem- 
ple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of 
the temple, he is a debtor. Ye fools, and blind ! for whether 
is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? 
And whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but 



214 GOD-MAN. 

ishing than the overthrow of his opponents. While 
passing from the temple, he paused to call the attention 
of his disciples to a poor but faithful widow, who was 
seen casting her two mites, " all her living, ,, into the 
treasury of the Lord.* 

whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty. 
Ye fools, and blind ! for whether is greater, the gift, or the 
altar that sanctifieth the gift? Whoso therefore shall swear 
by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon. And 
whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him 
that dwelleth therein. And he that shall swear by heaven, 
sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth there- 
on. Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for 
ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cumin, and have omitted 
the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith; 
these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other un- 
done. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swal- 
low a camel. Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hyp- 
ocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the 
platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou 
blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and 
platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto 
you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye are like unto 
whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, 
but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all unclean- 
ness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, 
but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Woe unto 
you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! because ye build 
the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the 
righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, 
we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of 
the prophets. Wherefore, ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that 
ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill 
ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents [snakes,] 
ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation 
of hell?" Matt, xxiii. 13-33. 
* Luke xxi. 1-4. 



MANIFESTATION. 2 1 5 

Next he gave audience to a company of Greek 
proselytes, who had come to Jerusalem to worship the 
God of the Jews, and who had asked permission, 
through Andrew and Phillip, to see the One of whom 
every tongue in Jerusalem was then speaking.* Per- 
chance it was the universal and " deep-seated presenti- 
ment," which had strangely attracted thither these 
and many other God-fearing Gentiles. A little later 
he withdrew from the courts of the temple, and wended 
his way to Bethany. Upon the summit of the Mount 
of Olives he paused to look back upon the fair but 
proud city. The sky was, most likely, cloudless. The 
moon was near her full, and on every hand there could 
be seen landscapes of attractive and marvellous beauty. 

But this little circle of friends were not on that even- 
ing star-gazers, or sentimental worshippers of nature. 
They w T ere absorbed by the continued announcement 
of startling truths and prophecies. .The hours sped on 
far into night, and still parables, and entreaties, warn- 
ings, and revelations fell upon the ears of amazed lis- 
teners, and answers to awakened inquirers became so 
explicit that the disciples seemed to talk with one who 
commanded at will all the wisdom of God.f At length 
the company gathered their mantles about them, de- 
scended behind the shadows of the Mount of Olives, 
and sought repose in a friendly hamlet in Bethany. 

Such is the record of a day in the life of Jesus ; and 
this was but a specimen, and in some respects not so 
startling as many of those days which witnessed his 
mighty miracles. 

During his ministry in Eastern Galilee, for instance, 

* John xii. 20-36. t Matt. xxiv. ; Mark xiii. ; Luke xxi. 



2l6 GOD-MAN. 

he passed the whole of a certain night in prayer. At 
daybreak he extended a special call to four of his dis- 
ciples ; he then descended from the mountain, and 
was quickly thronged by the people, who " pressed 
upon him to hear the word of God." The masses 
came in such numbers that he could not eat bread. 
The dangers were so great that his mother and brothers 
expostulated with him, and his friends declared he was 
beside himself. He nevertheless continued his instruc- 
tions, giving the parable of the sower, and that of the 
candle hid under a bushel, that of the earth as a 
harvest-field sown by the owner, also that of the grain 
of mustard-seed, together with a discourse on the 
manner in which we should hear the truth when pre- 
sented. 

In addition to this, there were special cases requiring 
advice, counsel, sympathy, and consolation, which 
w T ere brought before him, and to which he gave 
personal attention, relieving the anxious and con- 
soling the afflicted. 

But his work during the day grew continually more 
arduous and complicated. He was called upon to 
silence the frightful voices of demoniacs, and when he 
had spoken, these distressed beings stood freed and un- 
harmed before the people ; he also healed the mother- 
in-law of the apostle Peter ; and before nightfall his 
fame had so widely and rapidly spread that a whole 
city full of sick people had been gathered from every 
quarter. 

Imagine the scene. Those who first received infor- 
mation quickly extended it to others. Men and women 
were seen hurrying hither and thither. Couriers were 



MANIFESTATION. 2 I 7 

despatched in breathless haste. Such rare and golden 
opportunities might never again come. What a uni- 
versal response! Parents brought their consumptive 
children ; children bore in their arms paralytic parents ; 
a sister introduced a brother, blind from birth ; moth- 
ers importuned him to touch their feeble and deformed 
children. What scenes followed ! The lame walked, 
the lepers were cleansed, the blind received their sight, 
the paralytic was restored to soundness, raging fevers 
gave place to the cool and perfect flow of health, and 
a bloom revisited the cheek emaciated by disease, for 
" he healed all that had need of healing." No won- 
der that the people " were amazed, and glorified God, 
and were filled with fear, saying, We have seen strange 
things to-day." * 

The evening had come. Human nature was just 
ready to yield from sheer exhaustion. The miracle- 
worker hastened on board a fisherman's skiff. No 
sooner had she cleared from shore than he sank 
upon the first convenient spot, and apparently not 
minding the hunger of a whole day, was immediate- 
wrapped in slumbers so profound that the break- 
ing of a mad hurricane upon the boat did not awake 
him. No wonder! Sleepless the night before, and 
without a moment's rest during the day past. " Blessed 
be thy rough sleep, O thou great benefactor ! thou that 
art wearied and spent by thy particular works, and the 
virtues that have gone out of thee ! What is it now to 
thee that the waters drench thee, and the fierce tem- 
pest howls in tumult round thee ! Sleep on, exhausted 
goodness, take thy rest in the bosom of the storm ! for 

* Luke v. 26. 



2l8 GOD-MAN. 

it is thy Father's bosom, where they that are weary from 
works of love may safely trust, and sink so deeply 
down into the abysses of sleep, that no thunder even 
may rouse them." 

The terrified disciples awoke him. He arose, was 
nothing flurried, spoke, and the winds became whist 
as nightfall. Those on board were astonished, and 
exclaim, u What manner of man is this, that even the 
winds and the sea obey him? " Yes, he had slept like 
a tired man ; he awoke like — what? 

As we review these scenes, how strange and grand 
does the life of Jesus grow in its hold upon us ! We 
have recounted the deeds of a day ; but, seemingly, they 
are enough to fill a year. How sublime must have 
been the moments of such a life ! What grand and 
holy activities, what ceaseless and unwearied acts of 
mercy ! They are of such a nature and amount, that 
this single day full of them may have been thus mi- 
nutely portrayed to disclose in what manner the Re- 
deemer's ministerial life was employed, and to justify, 
if need be, " the noble hyperbole of the beloved apos- 
tle, that if the things which Jesus did should be written 
every one, ' the world itself could not contain the books 
that should be written.' " * 

We can no longer delay with these more than en- 
chanting scenes in his life. Enough, we think, has 
been said to establish the point in mind. A statement 
in brief is the following : — 

These wonderful transactions, which are compassed 
in the space of two days, are so completely involved 
with his teachings and discourses, that if we attempt 

* Ellicott. 



MANIFESTATION. 2 1 9 

to separate them, the one from the other, we at the same 
instant tear the entire web in sunder and into shreds. 
Historic odds and ends only are left. The same phi- 
losophy which denies the deeds must also deny the 
words ; indeed, deny the incidents of the life, and also 
the entire life. 

These historic connections are more than approxi- 
mate ; they are absolute and vital. These internal 
harmonies are more than accidental ; they are uncondi- 
tional and essential. 

In these Gospels, then, we look upon one whom 
every page presents to the world as a Miracle-worker.* 
These great and grand deeds are not merely " a bril- 
liant embroidery wrought on the plain web of the 
evangelical narrative ; they pervade its warp and woof/' 
This young man, of such rank and character as to pro- 
voke the most rigid scrutiny, performed his deeds, not 
in obscurity, but before the face and eyes of multi- 
tudes. 

In open city court, in country village, in hamlets, in 
doorways, in streets, he paused, arrested attention, 
spoke his words, wrought his miracles, and then bade 
men look, and, if they would, sift what they saw to 
the bottom. The "scholarly Rabbi," the "proud 
Pharisee," the " free-thinking Sadducee," the " intuiti- 
onal Essene," did look, study, examine, cross-question, 
and then confessed that notable miracles had been 
wrought. 

This power of working miracles never forsook Je- 
sus. It was no occasional grace, here to-day and gone 
to-morrow ; it was not obtained by agonizing and 

* Appendix, L. 



220 GOD-MAN. 

praying for it ; it was ever present ; it was himself, 
and was put to the severest tests as to time, place, and 
occasion. 

He stood before a closed grave, and in presence of 
anguish-stricken friends ; he commanded the stone to 
be removed, and their tears to be dry. He then spoke 
a word, and his " voice thrilled into the dim infinitudes 
of death, and the soul of him who heard it " returned, 
reanimated the lifeless form, in which had already 
commenced decomposition, and he who had been 
three days dead came forth. The aspect of death had 
disappeared. The breeze from the hill-side blew off the 
smell of the grave, and he returned with his friends, 
and helped remove from his home the symbols and 
emblems of his own funeral.* 

But a few months later Jesus himself was dead ; his 
hands and his feet had been spiked to the cross ; his 
heart was both broken and pierced ; a sadder picture 
of death had never been borne to the tomb. 

He entered those realms from which no mortal, how- 
ever much he may have desired it, has been able to 
will a return. 

Yet, after traversing the regions of death, until his 
purposes there were accomplished, he willed, returned, 
and took again the earthly life he had laid down, con- 
versed with his disciples for forty days, restored their 
lost courage, and inspired a confidence that no power 
or authority on earth could ever after silence or appall.t 

Thenceforth each faithless heart beat strong and full 
as if it " had been suddenly dilated with celestial cour- 
age ; each lowly forehead seemed mitred with pente 

* John xi. 1-46. t Appendix, M. 



MANIFESTATIONS 221 

costal flame." Nay, more, Jesus, by his resurrection, 
inspired a faith in humanity which has made homes 
without number happy, soothed sick beds, cheered 
death-beds, and by enabling mortals to seize the other- 
wise extinguished torch of hope and life, and to relight 
it at the immortal fires ever kept burning upon his 
grave, has filled the hearts of millions with joy un- 
speakable and full of glory. What — are we standing 
at the grave, and in the presence of a mortal like our- 
selves ! 



II 



DIVINITY OF JESUS; APOSTOLIC 
OPINIONS. 



AFTER the Gospels were completed, and Chris- 
tianity was beginning to spread extensively, 
and men, both in and out of the church, had become 
hungry for more subject-matter and explanation re- 
specting Jesus and his teachings, appeal was made to 
the apostles to answer many questions raised ; and 
upon their knowledge of the facts and the authority 
of inspiration, they commenced the statement of their 
opinions respecting the things they had seen, heard, 
and felt while Jesus walked among them. It is logi- 
cal, therefore, to pass, in our investigations, from 
recorded facts to recorded opinioits; that is, from 
the Gospels to the Epistles. 

It is necessary to admit, in the outset, that Jesus was 
not, during his earthly life, fully comprehended by the 
disciples ; nor is this to be wondered at. Until thirty 
years of age, the man Jesus may not, in all respects, have 
comprehended himself; nor even then fully. Shal- 
low, indeed, is the man who can fathom his own being. 

222 



MANIFESTATION. 223 

But these admissions do not damage at all the list of 
important incidents recorded, or diminish in the least 
the weight of those sublime convictions expressed by 
those who were certainly better qualified than any 
others to express them. 

No one, we dare say, will question the statement 
that the disciples, ever after their first introduction, 
believed that Jesus was the Messiah, and that he pos- 
sessed relations to the supernatural which separated 
him by a vast distance from themselves and from all 
others. 

Belief in his deity presented to their minds no diffi- 
culty. His humanity was what troubled them, and 
excited their constant and increasing wonder. The 
stories of his life, growing more and more marvellous, 
did not lead the disciples into the realms of super- 
natural legend and myth, but the opposite is true ; the 
facts of his life, as they had witnessed them, and the 
reports of their inner consciousness, could find no 
other solution not loaded with numberless difficulties, 
except that of his supreme deity.* 

In addition to this, " their views of his peculiar 
distinctions were ever on the increase. " The marvel- 
lous and imaginary halo which surrounds ideal charac- 
ters does not last when left to adorn real personages. 
Approaches to find perfection in any man are fatal, f 
Enchantments and distances are essential correlatives. 

* Appendix, N. 

t This appears very forcibly in some of the concluding 
statements of Dr. Legge in his Life and Teachings of Con- 
fucius. No modern testimony is more competent. " Some- 
how," says Legge, " Confucius is less a sage to me, after I 



224 GOD-MAN. 

Not so with Jesus. The disciples marvelled from the 
start, and more, the more the} 7 saw and heard. Great 
things had been clone by Jesus in their presence ; won- 
derful beauties of character, year by year and day by 
day, had been unfolded ; still the conviction of the 
disciples was ever deepening that there were in Jesus 
great and grand possibilities that had not, up to the 
close of his life, been actualized ; latent heat, itself 
more marvellous than anything else on earth, was felt, 
but remained as in waiting to send forth its blaze or 
splendor. On this account they had faith in him, 
whatever were the existing circumstance or emergency. 
They laughed at the idea of any catastrophe befalling 
him. Though forewarned, they did not believe he 
would die ; they thought he had spoken figuratively ; 
so when death came, they were overwhelmed. Up to 
that hour they had no doubt that he was, in fact, the 
real Restorer of Israel.* It is by no means surpris- 
ing, therefore, that these new and unexpected events 
blinded and appalled them. When they saw Jesus 
going to the cross, and lying in the tomb, no wonder 
they faltered. They were prepared for anything save 
such humiliation. But when he rose from the dead, 

have seen him at his table, in his undress, in his bed, and in 
his carriage. . . 

" I must now leave the sage. I hope I have not done him 
injustice. After long study of his character and opinions, I 
am unable to regard him as a great man. He was not before 
his age, though he was above the great mass of the officers 
and scholars of his time. He threw no new light on any of 
the questions that have a world-wide interest. He gave no 
impulse to religion. He had no sympathy with progress." 

* Luke xxiv. 21. 



MANIFESTATION. 225 

reassured their hearts, and ascended on high, then 
their earlier faith was restored and intensified. Then 
it was that the truth fully dawned upon them. The 
enigmas were at once solved. The latent heat became 
a blaze, and flashed through his whole life the mean- 
ing constantly waited for by the disciples, and gave 
them complete understanding of hitherto unexplained 
realities ; henceforth fact and belief, under -the correc- 
tion and impression of the Holy Ghost as the church 
claims, resolved themselves into established opinion 
and doctrine. 

This belief in the resurrection of Jesus, which had 
for the disciples all the assurance of unqualified and 
absolute certainty, is, however, but one of many other 
exalted opinions which found early assertion, and 
which have all the appearance of springing from 
incontrovertible facts and the deepest and firmest 
conviction man is heir to.* 

* No one, we presume, will, at this late day, ask for evi- 
dence to show that the resurrection was one of the primary 
and controlling opinions among the disciples. The conduct 
of the disciples finds in this faith its only possible solution. 
It was a subject upon which they never wavered in thought, 
so far as we can judge, and certainly not in expression. The 
testimony of F. C. Baur, who is one of the most resolute 
rejecters of supernatural Christianity, ought to be indorsed 
by all Liberals. " While historical critiscism," he says, " has 
nothing to do with the inquiry what the resurrection was in 
fact, it must hold fast to the assertion that, in the belief of 
the first disciples, it had become an established and incontro- 
vertible certainty. In this belief, Christianity had gained a 
firm ground for its historic development. What must be pre- 
supposed as the essential foundation of this history is not 

r 5 



226 GOD-MAN. 

The disciples firmly believed, for instance, that 
Jesus, in his divine nature, was Creator of the uni- 
verse. The statement of this opinion is so frequently 
made and presented under such variety and class of 
circumstances as to raise the fact of its prevalence 
above question.* 

The apostolic belief that Jesus is the Saviour of 
men from sin and its consequences, through atonement 
in his life, sufferings, and death, is so completely both 
the foundation and superstructure of New Testament 
theology, that proof, or reference to proof texts even, is 
entirely unnecessary. 

It was likewise as firmly held by the apostles that 
Christ should be regarded by men as the object of 
supreme worship. There is not, among the New Tes- 
tament writings, the least hesitation upon this subject. 
Instead of anything like caution to the world in the 
very matter where caution^ should exist, if, indeed, 
it should exist at all, we find " emphasis, intensity, 
accumulation of epithets ; the purpose of all being 
such as can find its reason in nothing short of the 
unconditioned meaning of those passages which bring 
the Person, the Chrisi, into view as the object of 

the fact that Jesus rose from the dead, but the fact that it was 
believed he had risen. However we may seek to explain this 
faith, the resurrection of Jesus had become to the first Chris- 
tians a fact of conviction, and had for them all the reality of 
an historical fact." 

* Julian charged upon the Christians the error, as he 
thought, of believing that Christ was Creator. In his glow- 
ing style he says, " Jesus, as you will have it, made the 
heavens and the earth." 



MANIFESTATION. 227 

worship, even of the highest worship of which the 
human spirit is capable." 

These grand thoughts respecting Jesus, the clear 
conviction of his deity, the mental difficulties involv- 
ing his humanity, the fact of his resurrection, the 
appellations which can be applied to Divine Being 
only, yet freely applied to him, together with the 
honors paid him as Creator, Redeemer, and object 
of supreme worship, bring us into an atmosphere of 
belief and conviction charged with nothing less than 
the presence of God himself.* 

* That the statement of the humanity of Jesus, in conse- 
quence, is only incidental in the Epistles, and that of his deity 
direct and positive, and the fact that, during the early years 
of church history, his divine well nigh overshadowed his 
human nature, is, under the circumstances, precisely what 
might be expected. And such most certainly are the facts. 
" The men," says William Arthur, " who loved Christ with 
a love stronger than death, wrote his life, but left no hint of 
height, complexion, features, or of any point that could help 
the mind to a personal image. Others wrote long epistles, 
of which he was the Alpha and Omega; but his form was as 
much kept secret as the body of Moses, hidden by the Al- 
mighty in an undiscovered grave." (See Appendix, O.) ''The 
Christian tombs and relics of the first centuries show no 
attempt to make an image of Christ. Too deep a sense of 
the Divine rested upon the early church to permit any attempt 
to print the human as it appeared in him." 

Jesus himself, by his own example, gave encouragement 
to the course pursued by the disciples. He left no relic, and 
allowed the robe he wore to be divided among his enemies. 
He left no stroke of a pen ; perhaps his autograph was never 
written. Alas, the Christian world has no epistle from his 
hand, bearing his signature! But perhaps it is best; we 
might fall to worshipping the epistle instead of its author; 



228 GOD-MAN. 

Confining attention chiefly to the points of doctrine 
already enumerated, we may confirm the statements 
made by direct reference, and at the same time show 
the external or tangible ground of modern Christian 
faith.* 

In this direct reference, the statements of the apostle 
Paul may receive, for obvious reasons, the first notice, 
though he confesses himself to be the last and least of 
the apostles, and not worthy to be called an apostle. 

Paul's opinions, especially if we concede the point 
either of special or general inspiration, must have 

at least there would be endless wrangling as to its genuine- 
ness and possession. But more than this, though Jesus 
showed, devoted love for his mother while making provision 
for her support, still he would not have the world regard her 
as an idol or a goddess, even though she bore him, but would 
show that there were relations between them, though the most 
intimate, still the most infinitely diverse. This is seen in his 
reply: "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" John ii. 4. 

The few institutions and rites actually established by 
Jesus, it should be borne in mind, point clearly to relations 
which involve, not humanity, but deity. 

* The thought is this : Aside from Christian conscious- 
ness, the church is in possession of data embraced in these 
facts of the Gospels, and the opinions and deductions in the 
Epistles. The certainty of the facts and the strength of the 
conviction upon which the opinions rest count much, nay, 
almost everything, in the estimate. If the facts stated are 
satisfactory, and if the apostles never hesitate in the expres- 
sion of their opinions, then there is afforded the most satis- 
factory and reliable external data possible upon which to 
establish modern belief. What other basis exists, indepen- 
dent of Christian consciousness, save recorded and reason- 
able facts and unqualified contemporaneous opinion respect- 
ing their certainty? 



MANIFESTATION. 229 

attached to them, in the view of thinking men, an 
importance the most weighty. Judging him as we 
judge other remarkable persons, we must allow that 
he is " one of the greatest spirits of all time." * 

He is very far removed from anything like affecta- 
tion and sentimentality. His heart never flutters, and 
his head is always cool. Still he everywhere enters 
upon his work as if with the most profound convic- 
tions of its importance and reality, and as if moved 
to it by the sublimest heroism and inspiration. 

He is the author of one third the New Testament, 
and his words and teachings, not being in the least 
overshadowed by the revolutions of time, have deeply 
thrilled, and will thrill forever, the souls of men. He 
had subtlety, tenacity, clearness, and rare versatility 
of intellect. His sentences are short, earnest, novel, 
but free from anything like pertness and egotism. His 
immortal utterances to the Christians of Ephesus, Phi- 
lippi, and Colosse constitute the theism of all modern 
civilization. We think it not extravagant to say that 
Paul is the Plato of the Christian world. 

But in estimating the character and work of this 

* The following testimonies will doubtless receive the 
hearty indorsement of every one : Renan speaks of Paul as 
"a man of rare intelligence, who formed for his lofty senti- 
ments expressions of rare felicity." 

"I think," says Coleridge, " St. Paul's Epistle to the Ro- 
mans the most profound work in existence." 

"We cannot but consider," says Channing, u the letters 
of Paul, with all their abrupt transitions and occasional 
obscurities, as more striking exhibitions of genuine Chris- 
tianity than could have been transmitted by-the most labored 
and artificial compositions." 



23O GOD-MAN. 

great man, we should be much in error did we lose 
sight of the confession upon which he ever laid espe- 
cial emphasis — that he was nothing of himself, and 
that all his true greatness was derived from Another. 

With equal emphasis he asserts that he had not 
been taught the gospel by man's wisdom, but by the 
revelation of Jesus Christ.* 

Such the character, qualifications and professions 
of this distinguished apostle. 

Upon an examination of his writings, he will be 
found to express no hesitation in ascribing to Jesus 

* " But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was 
preached of me is not after man : for I neither received it 
of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of 
Jesus Christ. For ye have heard of my conversation in time 
past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I perse- 
cuted the church of God, and wasted it; and profited in the 
Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, 
being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my 
fathers. But when it pleased God, who separated me from 
my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his 
Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen ; im- 
mediately I conferred not with flesh and blood, neither went 
I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before rne, 
but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus. 
Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, 
and abode with him fifteen days, But other of the apostles 
saw I none, save James, the Lord's brother. Now the things 
which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not. After- 
wards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia; and was 
unknown by face' unto the churches of Judea which were in 
Christ; but they had heard only, that he which persecuted 
us in times past, now preacheth the faith which once he 
destroyed. And they glorified God in me." Gal. i. 11-24. 



MANIFESTATION. 23 1 

titles, attributes, and works which belong only to 
deity. Impressive are the following : " The blessed 
and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of 
lords ; " * " Christ came, who is over all, God blessed 
forever ; " f the God who was " manifest in the 
flesh ; " I Before whom all must stand in judgment, 
and to whom every knee shall bow, and every tongue 
confess ; § " The Great God and our Saviour ; " || 
" And Thou, Lord, in the beginning, hast laid the 
foundation of the earth ; " ** " In him dwelleth all 
the fulness of the Godhead bodily ; " f f and, " Who, 
being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be 
equal with God." JJ 

If Jesus did not possess a divine nature, in the con- 
viction of Paul, then this language merits, not our 
belief, but our intense derision. 

Paul also presents Jesus to us as the Jehovah of the 
Old Testament dispensation. "But to us there is but 
one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we 
in him; and one Lord (Jehovah §§) Jesus Christ, by 
whom are all things, and we by him." |||| 

" Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be 
ignorant how that all our fathers were under the 
cloud, and all passed through the sea. And did all 
eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink •the 
same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual 
rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ." *** 

* 1 Tim. vi. 15. f Rom. ix. 5. J 1 Tim. iii. 16. 

§ Rom. xiv. 10, 11; Phil. ii. 10. || Titus ii. 10, 13. 

** Heb. i. 10. ff Col. ii. 9. %% Phil. ii. 6. 

§§ The word here translated Lord is the same that is 
translated in the Septuagint, Jehovah. 

I! || 1 Cor. viii. 6. *** 1 Cor. x. 1-4. 



232 GOD-MAN. 

According to Paul's Christology, the voice attended 
by the flame in the bush not burnt which spoke to 
Moses, the mysterious visitor whom Abraham enter- 
tained and to whom he prayed, the angel of the Lord 
with whom Jacob wrestled and prevailed, gaining the 
title Prince, the form of the fourth that stood in 
the blazing furnace with the three trusty followers of 
God, and whose face the king declared was bright 
like that of the Son of God, the angel of the cove- 
nant, the babe born in the manger, the man that spake 
as never man spake, and died upon a *cross, was 5 in 
every instance, the same Being, the same Christ of 
God, whose mission it was to manifest to man the 
otherwise invisible Father. 

In addition to this, Paul believed that Jesus was the 
world's atonement, and its sacrifice for sin. His lan- 
guage is unmistakable, and he everywhere abounds 
with the most glowing sentiments respecting this 
great doctrine. The following passages admit of no 
other interpretation : — 

" In whom we have redemption through his blood, 
the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his 
grace." * 

" Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by 
his own blood, he entered in once into the holy place, 
having obtained eternal redemption for us." t 

" Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for us.'J J 

" Being justified freely by his grace, through the 
redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath 
set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in his 
blood, to declare his righteousness, for the remission 

* Eph. i. 7. f Heb. ix. 12. { 1 Cor. v. 7. 



MANIFESTATION. 



2 33 



of sins that are past, through the forbearance of 
God." * 

u Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the 
law, being made a curse for us." f 

'"For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is 
brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, 
are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, 
that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, 
suffered without the gate." { 

In view of these, and many other passages which 
might be added, we solemnly believe the authority of 
Paul must be set entirely aside, or else we must look 
upon Jesus as the voluntary and expiatory offering of 
deity in behalf of humanity.- 

In summing up the opinions of Paul respecting the 
deity of Jesus, the depth of his convictions must not 
be overlooked. It was no mere sentiment, costing 
no effort, and for which he would undergo no sacri- 
fice ; his belief was his life. 

His devotion to this doctrine is to-day inspiring to 
contemplate, and his labors in its behalf were Titanic. § 

* Rom. iii. 24, 25. t Gal. iii. 13. 

J Heb. xiii. 11, 12. 

§ The extent of his labors can scarcely be over-estimated. 
"Among all nations," says some writer, "from the most 
civilized to the most barbarous, with all people, from the 
most enlightened to the most ignorant, — among the wan- 
dering hordes of Arabia, in the beautiful country of Asia 
Minor, amidst the bleak and barren mountains of Thrace, 
with the sceptical and philosophizing Athenians, with the 
corrupt and effeminate Corinthians, in the Eternal City, in 
Spain, even among the poor and superstitious islanders of 
Malta, — there was scarcely a discovered spot on the face of 



234 GOD-MAN. 

We see him surrendering the national honors he had 
won, and others in waiting to be heaped upon him. 
We see him hastening from place to place, seemingly 
with the rapidity of a whirlwind, enduring all kinds 
of fatigue and exposure, and confronting all sorts of 
danger.* We see him working as tent-maker, sub- 
sisting upon bread, milk, and the cheapest vegetables, 
and then resolutely dying in defence of his belief — 
the belief being, that no qualification or limitation 
whatever to the supreme deity of Jesus could be for 
a moment admitted. 

From Paul we pass to the opinions held by the 
apostle John respecting the superhuman nature of 
Jesus. 

the globe where we do not find the footprints of this un- 
wearied apostle, everywhere at home, everywhere prepared 
with views and arguments adapted to the habits and capaci- 
ties of the people he addressed, everywhere preaching * Jesus 
and the resurrection,' and ' becoming all things to all men, 
that he might at least save some.' " 

* " Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool), I 
am more ; in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, 
in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five 
times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten 
with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a 
night and a day I have been in the deep ; in journeyings 
often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by 
mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in 
the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in 
perils among false brethren ; in weariness and painfulness, 
in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, 
in cold and nakedness. Besides those things that are with- 
out, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the 
churches." 2 Cor. xi. 23-28. 



MANIFESTATION. 235 

No man in the world had such opportunities as he 
for forming, from original data, correct opinions. He 
was the disciple whom Jesus especially loved. He 
was regarded as. the personal and most intimate friend 
of his Master. His writings show that he was not 
destitute of strong, clear, and general intelligence. 

Gibbon says, " He is the most sublime of all the 
evangelists." 

"John," says Jerome, " was at once apostle, evan- 
gelist, and prophet — apostle, in that he wrote letters 
to the churches, as a master ; evangelist, as he wrote 
a book of the Gospel, which no other of the twelve 
apostles did, except St. Matthew ; prophet, as he saw 
the revelation in the Island of Patmos, where he was 
banished by Domitian. His Gospel, too, differs from 
the rest. Like an eagle he ascends to the very throne 
of God, and says, " In the -beginning was the Word." 

" He was," says Professor Plump tre, u the ' Tkeolo- 
gus' of the whole company of the apostles." 

No one, familiar with his writings, can fail to see 
that John was in possession of a sublimely spiritual 
insight into things divine, or fail to see that the image 
which, above every other, is the most clearly mirrored 
upon his soul is, beyond question, that of the Son of 
Man, who is also the Son of God. His personal rem- 
iniscences of Jesus are minute and distinct, and dis- 
close to us, not one who had occasionally seen, but one 
who had been a constant companion of the Master. 

His visions of the Eternal Word, made flesh and 
dwelling among men, are at once as unclouded as the 
nature of the subject allows, and truly sublime. His. 
opinions in the first chapter of his Gospel are familiar 



236 GOD-MAN. 

to all, and at the present stage of biblical criticism ought 
to be above controversy. Although they have been sub- 
jected to the most rigid analysis, they stand to-day, as 
ever, like an impregnable bulwark in evangelical faith. 

Here we have clearly announced, though without 
explanation, the grand and well nigh startling doctrine 
that Jesus Christ was truly and fully God. Examine 
the word Logos upon both historical and grammatical 
grounds, and testing the introductory verses of this 
Gospel in all ways which are consistent with literary 
and exegetical criticism, we can reach no other con- 
clusion than this — if John had desired to express, as 
his belief, that Jesus Christ was eternal, and was 
united with deity in such manner as to be God's real 
personality, he could have expressed himself in no 
other way so briefly, so directly, so clearly, and so well, 
as to say, " In the beginning was the Word, and the 
Word was with God, and the Word was God." * 

John's Apocalypse is scarcely less impressive in its 
disclosures respecting the position of Jesus than the 
announcement in his Gospel. What words are these, 
for illustration, to associate with man ! " I am he that 
liveth, and was dead, and behold I am alive forever 
more, Amen, and have the keys of hell and of death." f 

This the description of a mere man? Preposterous ! 
" The four and twenty elders fall down before him that 
sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for- 
ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, 
saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and 
honor, and power: for thou hast created all things." J 

* John i. 1. t Rev. i. 18. % Rev. iv. 10, 11. 



MANIFESTATION. 237 

"And they rest not day nor night, saying, Holy, 
holy, holy Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, 
and is to come." * This a man, like one of us ! 

" And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of 
God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and 
marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty ; just 
and true are thy ways, thou Kipg of saints. " f 

u And the Lamb shall overcome them; for he is 
Lord of lords and King of kings." J 

Notice, these ascriptions of praise are paid, not to 
the Father or to the Spirit, but to Jesus, the Christ 
of God. 

Does not this Being whom John thus presents to us 
stand in unique and solitary grandeur before and above 
the universe? And is it not singular that neither 
John, nor Paul, nor any other apostle, ever attempts, 
when thus exalting Jesus, to reconcile their faith with 
Jewish monotheism, to which they ever resolutely 
cling? But we here attempt no explanations. 

It must now be clear to all that Jesus Christ, in 
John's Christology, is the God whose glory Isaiah saw 
in a vision, when it filled the temple and shook its 
foundations ; § that he is " Alpha and Omega, " || the 
" true God,"** and at the same time " the propitia- 
tion for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the 
sins of the whole world." f\ 

Yes, John does assure us repeatedly that it is the 
blood of Jesus Christ alone which u cleanseth us from 
all sin," 11 and that the fulness of the Godhead 

* Rev. iv. 8. t Rev. xv. 3. J Rev. xvii. 14. 

§ Is. vi. 1, seq. ; John xii. 41. || Rev. xxii. 13. 

** 1 John v. 20. ff 1 John ii. 2. %% 1 John i. 7. 



238 GOD-MAN. 

constituted, by some, means, the personality of the 
crucified Saviour. If such be not the impression the 
apostle wishes to convey, then are not these words 
he employs superlatively ridiculous, if not absolutely 
profane ? 

From John we pass to the views of the apostle Peter. 
Peter is known to have had faults enough to entitle 
him to a full share of human nature. Yet he is felt to 
have been a man of sterling and roundabout common 
sense. He knew enough of men and things not to 
have been easily duped in matters of general observa- 
tion. He was no mystic ; he was a man of the 
world, a practical fisherman. His character, too, was 
the remotest from that which hastily forms opinions, 
and doggedly clings to them, unless based upon the 
firmest foundation. 

When, after years of companionship with Jesus, 
and after a deep personal Christian experience, he 
unqualifiedly writes to the Gentile world that Jesus 
" is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of 
God" (the place of supreme authority), " angels, and 
authorities, and powers being made subject unto 
him ; " * and when he says that glory and dominion 
ought constantly to be rendered to the Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ ;f and when he confidently as- 
sures his readers that Jesus " hath once suffered for 
sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to 
God, being put to death in the flesh ; " J and when he 
discloses to us the doctrine of the atonement in still 
more impressive language, enforcing the truth that we 
are " not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver 

* 1 Peter iii. 22. f x Peter v. 11. J 1 Peter iii. 18. 



MANIFESTATION. 239 

and gold," " but with the precious blood of Christ, as 
of a lamb without blemish and without spot ; " * and 
when, by figure and type, by reference to fact and 
prophecy, he presents Jesus to us as the one who is 
Shepherd and Bishop of souls, f whose kingdom is 
everlasting, J and to whom glory must be forever 
ascribed, § — then is not what this apostle says the 
idlest babbling, or else is it not deserving of profound- 
est respect, if not of implicit belief? 

Why need this subject longer detain us? When 
Nathaniel confessed, " Thou art the Son of God, 
thou art the King of Israel ; " || when Thomas ex- 
claimed, " My Lord and my God ; " ** when Peter, 
on the day of Pentecost, preached Christ raised from 
the dead, the Holy One, through whom is salva- 
tion ; ft when Philip announced the same doctrine to 
the eunuch on the road to Gaza ; J I when John, who 
possessed a deep and inspiring insight into the divine 
and eternal nature, comes from his retirement only to 
emphasize his belief more strongly ; when Paul pub- 
lished the same grand truths to the world, both in 
Antioch and elsewhere ; and when the disciples, as a 
body, preached the "kingdom of God" as identical 
with the " gospel of Christ," and presented Jesus 
to the world as the grand and glorious Messiah of 
Jewish thought and prophecy, and when they directed 
the whole church to invoke Jesus Christ as her Lord 
and her God ; nay, more, when they stood ready to 

* 1 Peter i. 18, 19. f 1 Peter ii. 25. 

{ 2 Peter i. 11. § 2 Pster iii. 18. 

]| John i. 49. ** John xx. 28. 

tf Acts ii. 24, 27. 38. t% Acts viii. 26, seq. 



240 GOD-MAN. 

die, and did die, the most cruel deaths imaginable in 
defence of this faith, — are their opinions to pass for 
" idle songs," or ideas brain-born ? 

One may rise from the dead and bring reports ; but 
can he persuade men, if this record of facts and opin- 
ions, resting upon conviction so overwhelming, fails to 
convince ? 



III. 

DIVINITY OF JESUS; CONTEMPORA- 
NEOUS PUBLIC OPINION. 



THE development of the general subject would be 
far from satisfactory or exhaustive, were no con- 
sideration given to early public belief, whether sup- 
porting or contradicting apostolic or church opinion. 

That this class of recorded testimony is largely in- 
cidental and fragmentary by no means lessens its 
importance. Indirect or circumstantial evidence and 
testimony, especially when from a great number of 
sources, and when given under a great variety of con- 
ditions, as to both time and place, are no less con- 
vincing than if connected and direct. 

And, also, that public opinion was not in all respects 
uniform, — often, indeed, contradictory, — is precisely 
what would be expected from the nature of the One 
concerning whom the opinion was formed. 

If we are correct in previous estimates, Jesus seems 
to have been in possession of a human and divine, or 
a human-divine consciousness ; the phenomena pre- 
sented, if the supposition be granted, would not, of 
16 241 



242 GOD-MAN. 

course, be uniform ; often, in fact, seemingly contra- 
dictory. Corresponding therewith should be the testi- 
mony. 

Hence, too, the perplexity in which those who met 
Jesus were frequently involved, is in perfect keeping 
with both apostolic record and belief. 

To illustrate this point, take a single occasion — 
that of the Festival of Tabernacles. The scene was 
in Jerusalem, and in one of the courts of the temple. 
Jesus had just come from Galilee. A vengeful storm 
had gathered around him. The malice of Scribe and 
Pharisee was no longer suppressed, but open. The 
inquiring multitude had witnessed his deeds, and lis- 
tened to the words he spoke. We have, doubtless, in 
their various questions and replies, an expression of 
the conflicting thoughts which were on many other 
occasions working in the hearts of men. Notice 
especially the following sentiments taken from the 
account in question : * " And there was much mur- 
muring among the people concerning him ; for some 
said, He is a good man ; others said, Nay, but he de- 
ceiveth the people. Howbeit no man spake openly 
of him, for fear of the Jews." (12-14.) 

" And the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth 
this man letters, having never learned?" (15.) 

" The people answered and said, Thou hast a devil. 
Who goeth about to kill thee?" (20.) 

" Then said some of them of Jerusalem, Is not this 
he whom they seek to kill? But lo, he speaketh 
boldly, and they say nothing unto him. Do the rulers 
know indeed that this is the very Christ? Howbeit 

* John vii. 



MANIFESTATION. 243 

we know this man, whence he is : but when Christ 
cometh, no man knoweth whence he is." (25-27.) 

" Then they sought to take him ; but no man laid 
hands on him. And many of the people believed on 
him, and said, When Christ cometh, will he do more 
miracles than these which this man hath done?" 

u Then said the Jews among themselves, Whither 
will he go, that we shall not find him? Will he go 
unto the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the 
Gentiles? What manner of saying is this that lie 
said, Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me ; and 
where I am, thither ye cannot come? " (35, 36.) 

" Many of the people, therefore, when they heard 
this saying, said, Of a truth, this is the Prophet. 
Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall 
Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the Scripture 
said, that Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out 
of the town of Bethlehem, where David was? So 
there was a division among the people because of 
him. And some of them would have taken him ; but 
no man laid hands on him." (40-44.) 

" Then came the officers to the chief priests and 
Pharisees ; and they said unto them, Why have ye not 
brought him? The officers answered, Never man 
spake like this man. Then answered them the Phar- 
isees, Are ye also deceived? Have any of the rulers, 
or of the Pharisees, believed on him? But this peo- 
ple, who knoweth not the law, are cursed. Nicode- 
mus saith unto them (he that came to Jesus by night, 
being one of them), Doth our law judge any man be- 
fore it hear him, and know what he doeth? They 



244 GOD-MAN. 

answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Gal- 
ilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no 
prophet. And every man went unto his own house." 

(45-53-) 

These expressions of various and conflicting ele- 
ments of belief, doubt, and unbelief, — unbelief based, 
however, upon selfish interest and non-essential tech- 
nicalities, — bear unintended yet overwhelming evi- 
dence that it was a Being, in the judgment of the 
people, of strangely anomalous nature, who, by word 
and deed, had so long perplexed them. 

The popular wonder was often intensified by an- 
other fact. While Jesus seemed, to the multitude, 
every way qualified to fulfil the conditions of Messiah- 
ship, he continually did the things which disappointed 
popular hope, and declined to do what all desired, 
and absolutely refused to receive the national crown, 
when proffered him. 

The Jews saw him, for instance, going from place to 
place, everywhere astonishing the inhabitants by his 
wonderful deeds and words, but were perplexed that 
first of all he served the poor, the afflicted and out- 
cast, and would achieve no mighty deliverance for his 
own oppressed country. They said, therefore, We 
look for another. 

They heard him speak before the great men of the 
nation, and elsewhere, with supreme majesty and au- 
thority, but were perplexed that he never once alluded 
to the Maccabees, pronounced no words of praise 
upon those who would perform patriotic and warlike 
deeds, and gave no hint, even the remotest, of how the 
restoration of Jewish polity and power could be effected. 



MANIFESTATION. 245 

They also heard his announcements that he was 
King, that he came on earth to establish the Everlast- 
ing Kingdom of Jewish prophecy, but they could not 
sufficiently wonder that, in face of all this, he associ- 
ated freely with Roman tax-collectors ; that he would 
not, on any account, despise the Samaritans ; that he 
readily entertained heathen, and, on a single condi- 
tion, forgave the most abandoned, whom the national 
law would have summarily executed. They heard 
these things, they were amazed ; they said, This can- 
not be the mighty One who was promised. And 
then, in many cases, they went back, " and walked no 
more with him." 

But these statements as to the nature of the testi- 
mony under review, and these admissions as to the 
frequency of popular doubt, prepare the way for a 
more direct emphasis of that popular faith, which ever 
and anon asserted itself in support of the exalted 
claims of Jesus and his disciples. 

The visit and conduct of the shepherds, the adora- 
tion of the Magi, the alarm of Herod, and astonish- 
ment of the doctors in the temple, have their weight, 
more or less, in the general estimate ; but, as they 
have been before alluded to, do not admit, in the 
present connection, of more than mention and ref- 
erence.* 

Other scenes, as we recall the life of Jesus, throng 
the memory. Notice a few belonging to the class of 
indirect evidence. 

Of such is the cleansing of the temple — twice ; 
once at the commencement, f and once near the close 

* Page 198-200. f John ii. 13-17. 



246 GOD-MAN. 

of his public ministry.* The One from Nazareth en- 
tered that temple, found it converted from a place of 
worship into a house of Mammon and merchandise. 

Amid the astonishment of the bystanders and tem- 
ple-police, he, single-handed, put a summary end to 
that mercenary desecration. He drove forth the sheep 
and oxen, overturning those tables of u unholy gains." 
And the brokers and traders fled as if it were the 
hand of God which had smitten them. We have, it 
is true, no record that they said, Jesus is divine ; but, 
had they believed he were merely human, would they 
thus have yielded up the profits of their trade? 

Recall another incident : his Scripture exposition in 
the synagogue of his native village* He stood, on that 
occasion, before those among whom he had learned 
his father's trade, and passed his youth. But those 
villagers found themselves suddenly overcome by sur- 
prise while listening to his discourses, and exclaimed, 
among themselves, " Is not this Joseph's son? and his 
brothers and sisters, are they not with us? Whence 
hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works?" 
He, to them, was an unnatural and unaccountable 
phenomenon. 

They of Nazareth were not blind enthusiasts, but 
they were appalled by the unheard-of conduct and 
words of a fellow-citizen. They could not compre- 
hend how he had ventured from the lowest grades of 
society to those giddy heights on which he so firmly 
stood. Ordinary elevation they would have honored 
and applauded, but such startling traits bewildered 
them. They surmised he must be impostor, blas- 

* Mark xi. 15. 16. 



MANIFESTATION. 247 

phemer, or Beelzebub, and therefore led him to the 
brow of the hill.* 

Let us vary for a moment the form and class of 
testimony. 

Nicodemus, both cautious and penetrating, and who, 
in his conservative and rigid investigations, would sift 
things to the bottom, confessed, " We know that thou 
art a teacher come from God : for no man can do 
these miracles that thou doest, except God be with 
hiin. v f The woman of Samaria, too keen and wicked 
to be easily duped, also saw and heard enough to con- 
vince her that Jesus was the Christ who was to come. 
And they of her village believed also, t; and said unto 
the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy say- 
ing ; for we have heard him ourselves, and know that 
this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." J 

The Roman nobleman, likewise, was so deeply im- 
pressed by the presence and power of Jesus, that he 
believed that the word, i; Thy son liveth," which had 
been spoken in Cana, would restore his son dying in 
Capernaum. § 

The military commander of the same city, whose 
servant was sick, and ready to die, said unto Jesus, 
44 Lord, trouble not thyself; for I am not worthy that 
thou shouldest enter under my roof. Wherefore, 
neither thought I myself worthy to come unto thee ; 
but say in a word, and my servant shall be healed." || 

And the afflicted woman who had spent all her 
property upon physicians, without benefit, u said 
within herself, If I may but touch his garment, 1 

* Luke iv. 16-30. t John iii. 1-3. 

J John iv. 42. § John iv. 46-54. 

|j Luke vii. 6, 7. 



248 GOD-MAN. 

shall be whole. " * The Syrophoenician woman, too, 
believed that a volition would restore her demonized 
daughter ; and it did. 

Martha, a woman of rare and practical good sense, 
whose marked characteristics are far removed from 
anything like sentimentalism, confessed, u Yea, Lord : 
I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, 
which should come into the world." f 

Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, said unto Jesus, 
" My daughter is even now dead ; but come and lay 
thy hand upon her, and she shall live." \ 

The multitude who followed him into the desert of 
Bethsaida, when they saw his miracles, exclaimed, 
46 This is of a truth that prophet that should come 
into the world." § 

And in the plains near Capernaum, on another 
occasion, a great multitude of people from Judea, Je- 
rusalem, and from the sea-coasts of Tyre and Sidon, 
sought merely to touch him ; so great was their faith 
that he could heal them. || 

Demoniacs repeatedly hailed him as the " Holy One 
of God," and lepers by the road-side exclaimed, u If 
thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." His political 
and religious enemies, of all foes the most blind and 
bitter, though they sometimes derided him with the 
taunt, — 

P A carpenter's apprentice ! A mechanic ! 
Whom we have seen at work here in the town 
Day after day; a stripling without learning, — 
Shall he pretend to unfold the word of God 
To men grown old in study of the law?" — 

* Matt. ix. 21. t John xi. 27. 

J Matt. ix. 18. § John vi. 14. 

|| Luke xi. 17-19. 



MANIFESTATION. 249 

yet more than once they trembled in his presence, 
not daring to execute an intended arrest. 

And what a grand tribute of praise was that upon 
the occasion of his triumphal entry into Jerusalem ! 

Then it was that the deep heart of the people 
seemed stirred as by supernatural enchantment ; 
shouts of mysterious welcome were heard on every 
hand, — up from the valleys, and echoed back from 
the hill-sides. 

The multitude remembered his deeds, M and began to 
rejoice, and praise God with a loud voice for all the 
mighty works they had seen." * They then felt as 
never before the superhuman and God-like charm of 
his life ; they proclaimed him king of the nation ; they 
crowned him ; they cast their robes in his way ; " and 
the multitudes that went before, and that followed, 
cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David : Blessed 
is he that cometh in the name of the Lord : Hosanna 
in the highest." f And thus he entered the city, and 
the Scripture was fulfilled. 

There were other occasions, also, and not a few, 
when the cloud parted so widely, and when the Super- 
natural Being burst forth so completely through the 
human covering of the Lord Christ, that all human 
din and doubt were silenced and banished ; and the 
people heard a voice, as it had been thunder. J 

His enemies, even when plotting his death, felt that 
there was a divine charm about his life. They would 
make his arrest, but employed Judas ; not that they 
could not find Jesus ; not that they did not know Je- 
sus ; but because they thought it would somehow 

* Luke xix. 37. f Matt. xxi. 9. J John xii. 29. 



25O GOD-MAN. 

u break the spell that bound him," if they were as- 
sisted by one of his " intimate" companions. And 
when, in this manner, they, with a guard of soldiers, 
had gained his presence, those soldiers, who feared 
nothing so much as disobedience of orders, refused to 
advance, and fell to the ground awe-struck. Another 
company of bailiffs, too, who were sent to arrest him, 
and whose business was to arrest him, who had per- 
haps grown old in such service, returned, after a fruitless 
attempt, saying, " Never man spake like this man." 
He w T as to them no mere man. We cannot arrest him, 
was their confession, unless he voluntarily yields to 
our power. 

And when he had allowed himself to be arrested, 
and led to trial, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled ; 
when he " hung like a bruised flower, drooping on the 
cross ; " and when the world and laws of nature, by 
rending her bosom and veiling her light, paid to his 
sad majesty and " divine innocence their funeral 
grief," — then, in public estimation, he died, not as 
man, but as something mysteriously more and higher 
than man. 

So thought aloud the hard-faced soldier, " Truly 
this was the Son of God." As if he had said, I have 
seen men die, many of them, before now, — this is not 
a man. They call him the Son of God ; I know not 
what this means, but — he is the Son of God. 

All Jerusalem felt the force of this same conviction. 
That night, after Christ's death, was a night of terror 
throughout the city. That hour of awakening from 
the national intoxication and bewilderment, which 
had thrust upon the people this deed, left the pallor 



MANIFESTATION. 25 1 

of death upon despairing multitudes. That wild cry, 
'•Men and brethren, what shall we do?" bears over- 
whelming evidence to the strong reactions and ap- 
palling apprehensions which had settled down upon 
the nation. In the judgment of every reasonable being 
in that city, it was no mere man, much less a mal- 
efactor, who had been executed. 

Officers, rulers, and people, even the bitterest of his 
enemies, bent the knee. And whole multitudes, whose 
hearts had not become rock, felt that it was Jehovah 
who had lately passed through the world. 



IV. 



DIVINITY OF JESUS; HIS PERSONAL 
TESTIMONY. 



A LL that has been said respecting the superlative 
-£^- importance of this class of evidence in another 
connection* may here be reasserted and intensified. 
Are not his words, after all else is said, that which 
must remain for men an ultimate appeal? 

In general there can be no question that Jesus, in a 
singular and solitary sense, separated himself from all 
men, and claimed for himself dignity and power, — 
""in a word, an elevation, both of nature and office, " f 
such as no other man on earth has ever dared to claim. 

But particularize, and the position is no less incon- 
testable. Take, for illustration, the conditon of sinless- 
ness. 

If there be anything which lifts man above the ordi- 
nary sphere of humanity, it is freedom from sin ; yet 
this was one of the claims of Jesus — a claim which has 
not in any instance been made by any pagan philoso- 

* See page 194. t E> r « Eliot. 

2^2 



MANIFESTATION. 



253 



pher or religious teacher of the past, or by any of the 
great and good men of modern times. 

The life of Christ, we must remember, was not one of 
imaginary, but of real struggle and conflict. He had a 
human will, which could have rebelled, and have made 
him sinner as to his humanity if he had chosen. '• Not 
my will, but thine, be done ; " how strangely that falls 
upon the ear ! Yet it gives intensified emphasis to the 
thought under consideration. u The spirit is indeed 
willing, but the flesh is weak," included his own flesh. 
" Tempted in all points as we are," admits of no quali- 
fication, save that on his part there was no sin. 

All know that man is finite, feeble, and limited on all 
sides. Deficiency shows itself in his thoughts and deeds. 
It seems impossible for a mere man to attain absolute 
and pure goodness. 

" Few bring back at eve, 
Immaculate, the manners of the morn." 

And when a man like ourselves sets himself up as a 
model, unparalleled, incomparable, a universal stan- 
dard, by whom all goodness is exhausted, then we are 
forced to say, Thou art either a supreme hypocrite, or 
a being more than human. 

But such were the professions of Jesus. Though 
there was struggle, severe and fierce, yet, according to 
his own declaration, there was in every struggle con- 
quest, noble and sublime. " Who convinceth me of 
sin?"* was his challenge. "I am come to fulfil the 
law,"t and "I have glorified thee on the earth, and 

* John viii. 46. t Matt. iii. 17. 



254 GOD-MAN. 

have finished the work which thou gavest me to do," * 
were his unqualified assertions, f 

How terribly did Jesus denounce hypocrisy ! Yet 
he claimed that he was the light of the world ; that 
he did nothing except in harmony with the Father 
Almighty ; and that the prince of this world had noth- 
ing in him. J 

Though in the likeness of human flesh, and his hu- 
manity being real human flesh, still he claimed to be 
so united with Deity, that he was freed from every 
moral impurity inherited from his mother, and stood 
before the world professing that God himself is no 
purer. 

If he were thus sinless, he was divine ; if he were 
not, then this outcry of his against hypocrisy, and these 
exalted personal claims — do they not make him earth's 
supreme arch-hypocrite ? § 

* John xvii. 4. t See also John vii. 18. J John xiv. 30. 

§ This claim of Jesus to sinlessness found echo in the hearts 
of those who knew him best, and is also supported by every 
sort of evidence, and by ample testimony. The apostles an- 
nounced him as the one without fault or sin. 2 Cor. v. 21. 
Heb. iv. 15. 

Though upon familiar terms with publicans and harlots, 
still his worst enemies never breathed suspicion against his 
spotless innocence. This speaks volumes when we remember 
that even a Francis of Assisi, a Vincent de Paul, and the 
holiest of saints have been vilified. See De Lammenais, 
also Farrar. 

The Toldoth Jeschu, with all their blasphemers, charge him 
with no sin, save one — his claim to be the Son of God. 

Judas, with as keen an eye to read men as ever mortal pos- 
sessed, after an intimate acquaintance for three j-ears at the 



MANIFESTATION. 



03 



But again, it must be apparent to all that Jesus not 
onlv fully understood Old Testament type and prophe- 
cy, but that he also uniformly applied the same to him- 
self. In this he took the boldest step it was possible 
for one to take. Notice the force of this consideration. 

Jesus was well aware that the great and immovable 
truth which the Scriptures had displayed in unmis- 
takable clearness and splendor, was, that God would 
dwell on earth and in human flesh. 

He understood perfectly well, also, that the Hebrew 
prophetic idea was, that this u Immanuel," God in the 
world with man, " the Teacher of the ages, the future 
Master of human thought, the perpetual Ruler of hu- 
man opinion, the future Judge and universal King," 
was Messias, who was to come ; and yet, knowing this, 
Jesus continually, unhesitatingly, and unqualifiedly rep- 
resented himself as the one, and the only one of whom 
the Scriptures had thus testified. 

He did more. He employed external and internal 

head of the department in which corruption always first ap- 
pears, — the treasury, — exclaimed to priests and rulers, 
" I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood." 
" Have nothing to do with that just man" said the wife of 
Pontius Pilate to her husband. And Pilate himself, il when he 
had called together the chief priests, and the rulers, and the 
people, said unto them, Ye have brought this man unto me, 
as one that perverteth the people; and behold, I, having ex- 
amined him before you, have found no fault in this man, 
touching those things whereof ye accuse him ; no, nor yet 
Herod; for I sent you to him; and lo, nothing worthy of 
death is done unto him." Luke xxiii. 13-15. 

And later still, washing his hands, he exclaimed, "I am 
m innocent of the blood of this just person." Matt, xxvii. 24. 



256 GOD MAN. 

evidence in support of his claims. He spoke and 
taught as if the entire Christology of the Bible de- 
pended upon his being the Christ. Son of David he 
claimed to be, and David's Lord. Not the son of a 
man, but son of humanity, by a human mother. 

If we include the New Testament statements as a 
kind of interpretation of the Old, keeping in mind the 
use and appropriation Jesus made of them, we shall be 
the more deeply impressed with the significance of his 
exalted and sublime claims to divinity. It amounts, in 
fact, to his selection of the highest and purest types in 
every realm to be his representatives. In nature, he 
is the " Lily of the valley," the " Rose of Sharon," the 
" Bright and Morning Star," the " Rock," and its 
" Shadow," and the refreshing " Fountain ; " in the 
political field he is the " Governor," the " Prince of 
Peace," " Lord of lords," " King of kings," and 
4i Wonderful" " Counsellor ; " and in theology, he is 
the " Ransom," " Redeemer," "Mediator," " Priest " 
and " Prophet," the " Brightness of the Father's glory," 
the " express Image of his Person," the " Wonderful," 
the " Ancient of Days," " Sun of Righteousness," u Je- 
hovah," " Jehovah of Hosts," " Mighty God," " Ever- 
lasting Father," and " God with us." 

These appellations accumulate as we continue our 
investigations. Jesus, in the Scriptures, is called God, 
or by a name implying it, no less than fifteen times. 

Seventy-seven times is he called Lord, and One 
with the Father, seventeen ; ten times are the same 
things spoken of him as of God, and fifty-two is he 
presented as an object of worship. In fifty-eight 
places is he spoken of as Saviour, in fourteen as Re- 



MANIFESTATION. 257 

deemer, in fifteen as possessing eternal life, in fifteen as 
Giver of eternal life, in seventeen as Judge of the world, 
in twenty as the Bestower of rewards, and in twenty- 
four as the Executer of the punishment of the wicked. 

Such of these claims and titles as were in use before 
his birth he unqualifiedly applied to himself, and those 
that came into use at subsequent dates, he directly and 
indirectly authorized. 

He thus, in one way and another, calmly gathered 
up all the separate and wandering rays of prophecy 
which had sparkled through the divine word, as well 
as its more manifest declarations, and then unfalteringly 
announced himself the only_one upon whose head could 
be concentrated this sacred halo. Surely never did any 
other man claim so much as he. 

We are aware that not a few non-evangelical Chris- 
tians (this term in courtesy only is allowed) assert that 
whenever Jesus employs these exalted terms, he also, 
and in the same connection, speaks in other terms, and 
acknowledges his dependence. 

" I confidently challenge the Bible student," says Dr. 
Eliot, " to adduce a single passage of Scripture where 
Christ speaks of himself in this exalted tone of authori- 
ty and divine communion, in which he does not with 
equal distinctness declare that he spoke, and worked, 
and lived by the will and power of Him whom he uni- 
formly declared to be the only true God, the infinite 
and almighty Father." 

True ; and we would not have it otherwise. But 
while admitting this, may we not politely, yet as con- 
fidently, ask Dr. Eliot, or any one else, without the 
formality of offering the challenge, to show that it was 
17 



258 GOD-MAN. 

not likewise as customary for Jesus, whenever he made 
special mention of his human nature and dependence, 
to indicate, in the same connection, with equal dis- 
tinctness his divine nature, and his complete, nay, ab- 
solute independence? 

Did he stand as a tax-payer before the Roman depu- 
ty ? Yet the tribute was demanded of a fish from the 
sea, and the demand was immediately honored.* Did 
he desire fruit from the fig tree ? He spoke, and the 
fruitless tree withered as if smitten by one of the bolts of 
God.f Did he ever and anon betray physical weakness 
and disappoint the expectations of his followers? 

John the Baptist had been thrown into prison. Thus 
suddenly interrupted in his work, and not finding in- 
tervention from Jesus for his deliverance, he was per- 
plexed, and sent to know if he were the promised One. 
The account is brief and explicit. We may be as sure 
that the words were uttered, " as if our ears had heard 
them." 

" And John, calling unto him two of his disciples, 
sent them to Jesus, saying, Art thou he that should 
come ? or look we for another ? When the men were 
come unto him, they said, John Baptist hath sent us 
unto thee, saying, Art thou he that should come? or 
look we for another? " 

" And in that same hour he cured many of their 
infirmities, and plagues, and of evil spirits ; and unto 
many that were blind he gave sight. Then Jesus, 
answering, said unto them, Go your way, and tell 
John what things ye have seen and heard ; how that 
the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, 

* Matt. xvii. 24-27. f Matt. xi. 12, seq. 



MANIFESTATION. 259 

the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the 
gospel is preached. And blessed is he whosoever 
shall not be offended in me." * 

What profession could be more deliberate and un- 
deniable? Nay, in all his humiliation, Jesus was a 
professed and independent miracle-worker.f He 
claimed to be able to feed u five thousand persons " 
with u five barley loaves and two small fishes." J He 
claimed, in numerous instances, to be able to heal sick- 
nesses by a word or touch. He claimed to heal infirm 
men, § and blind men, || and demoniacs,** and to raise 
to life dead men.|f Do not actions outspeak words? 

He also professed to forgive sins ; but u who," the peo- 
ple well asked, " can forgive sin but God alone? " H 

* Luke vii. 19-23. 

t The sceptics of the second and third centuries, Julian, 
Porphyry, and Celsus agree in one thing — that Christ pro- 
fessed that he worked miracles ; they said he did these things 
by magic. And respecting this personal claim, Jesus stands 
quite alone in the world. The wonderful powers attributed 
to St. Francis Xavier w r ere never professed by himself; he 
goes so far as to ridicule the instance where he was supposed 
to have resuscitated a dead infant. 

Mahomet positively disclaimed miraculous powers. Those 
attributed to him in later legends — for instance, that referred 
to by Tholuck, where the moon, after seven times going round 
the Kaaba, saluted him, entered his right sleeve, and, slip- 
ping out at the left, split into two halves, which reunited 
after having retired to the extreme east and west — pass for 
what they are worth, with but slight credit to the prophet. 
See also Appendix, L. 

X Matt. xiv. 13-21; Mark vi. 30-44; Luke ix. 10-17; John 
vi. 1-14. 

§ John v. 1, seq. || Matt. ix. 27, seq. ** Matt. viii. 28, seq- 

ff Luke vii. 11. -seq.; John xi. 1-46. J J Luke v. 21. 



Z60 GOD-MAN. 

" If I, with the finger of God," he exclaimed in 
presence of the enraged Scribes and Pharisees, u cast 
out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon 
you." * 

But it is further objected that Jesus professed to be 
" Son of Man ; " and the rejoinder follows, Is there 
not in that term implied humiliations and limita- 
tions? That the term was employed there can be no 
question,f and likewise no question that it connects 
Jesus, not with a race of beings above men, but unites 
him indissolubly and forever with humanity ; nay, he 
of Nazareth was no incarnate angel. 

The theory of God-man, however, suffers by these 
admissions no embarrassment, but gains thereby much 
force, especially when noting in what strange connec- 
tions this appellation occurs. They are such, really, 
as to occasion scarcely less surprise than any other 
terms employed, whatever be their connections. 

It is the " Son of Man " who " cometh at an hour 
when ye think not." X It is the « Son of Man " who 
is " Lord also of the Sabbath." § It is the u Son of 
Man " who " hath power on earth to forgive sins." || 

* Luke xi. 20. 

t Yet it may be well to notice, though Jesus frequently 
designates himself thus, that no one else in the Gospels ever 
ventures to employ the title when addressing him. 

The force of this term, on prophetic grounds, may be seen 
by reference to the Book of Daniel, where it is said of the mys- 
terious Son of Man, that " there was given him dominion, 
and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and lan- 
guages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting 
dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that 
which shall not be destroyed."' Dan. vii. 14. 

X Luke xii. 40. § Luke vi. 5. || Matt. ix. 6. 



MANIFESTATION. 261 

It is the " Son of Man " who " shall send forth his an- 
gels," " at the end of the world.*' * It is the " Son of 
Man" who shall be seen hereafter, " sitting on the right 
hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." f 
Unnatural and utterly unintelligible is such language 
if Jesus Christ were merely a son of man. 

Nor must we give exclusive emphasis to the term 
" Son of Man," for there still remains unexplained the 
title "Son of God." The most daring and reckless 
criticism cannot deny that Jesus claimed to he the 
" Son of God " in ways and under circumstances which 
are, to say the least, singularly peculiar. 

The Jews clearly understood him to teach that he 
was not u son of God, but " the Son of God." It 
was for this claim, which made him in Jewish estima- 
tion of the same nature as God, that they attempted 
to kill him. This, to them, was blasphemy, and it was 
blasphemy unless he possessed and could wield all the 
attributes of Jehovah. 

Notice also in what solemn connections Jesus calls 
himself " Son of God." 

" He that believeth on him is not condemned ; but 
he that believeth not is condemned already, because he 
hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son 
of God. " % " Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour 
is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the 
voice of the Son of God ; and they that hear shall live." § 
" And the high priest arose, and said unto him, An- 
swereth thou nothing ? what is it which these witness 

* Matt. xiii. 39, 41. f Matt. xxvi. 64. 

% John iii. 18. § John v. 25. 



262 GOD-MAN. 

against thee? But Jesus held his peace. And the 
high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee 
by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be 
the Christ the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, 
Thou hast said : nevertheless, I say unto you, Here- 
after shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right 
hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. 
Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath 
spoken blasphemy ; what further need have we of wit- 
nesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy." * 

Jesus asked the blind man if he believed on the 
" Son of God," f and approved Peter when he con- 
fessed, " Thou art the Christ the Son of the living 
God ; " I and he did not reprove Thomas when, under 
deep and special conviction of the truth, he said, " My 
Lord and my God." § 

But the terms employed and the titles applied find 
clear interpretation, if we group much else which Je- 
sus directly and indirectly professed of himself. 

When he treats the law of God as if it were his own, 
saying, u Ye have heard it said . . ." " But I say unto 
you ; " when he claims to be the Judge of all men, the 
Lord of God's vineyard, the only way in which men 
can come to God, the only embodiment of truth in a 
world of error, the only infallible interpreter of God 
in a world where search is ever baffled ; when he 
affirms that he is the Founder of a universal and ever- 
lasting kingdom, and the Author of a new moral crea- 
tion ; when he says that all things are henceforth 
intrusted to his hands, and that no man on earth is 

* Matt. xxvi. 62-65. + J ohn '*< 35- 

X Matt. xvi. 16. § John xx. 26. 



MANIFESTATION. 263 

great enough to comprehend him, the comprehen- 
sion of the Father Almighty being no more difficult ; * 
when be represents the sheading of his blood as the 
world's only redemption from sin, f and his words as 
more enduring than heaven and earth, X and his person- 
al and vital presence as being with all his followers in 
all time to come ; § when he asserts that the time is on 
the wing in which, he, as King, shall appear in the 
glory of God, with the angels of heaven, and give to 
mortals the reward of their works, || and assign the 
kingdom of heaven to those prepared for it;** when 
he repeatedly claims to be a child of eternity as well 
as of Judea, and to be in possession of a conscious and 
distinctly-remembered pre-existence,ff when he speaks 
of God and himself as one, and in connections which 
manifestly imply the most intimate familiarity and per- 
fect equality ; tj and when he challenges all these hon- 
ors and prerogatives, not in exceptional passages, but 
so frequently as to give general tone to the Gospels ; 
when we find ourselves unable, by any degree of crit- 
ical boldness and ingenuity, to expurgate these claims, 
and leave enough of the New Testament to save from 
destruction the personal history and existence of the 
one for whom it was written ; nay, more, when we 
mass all these facts, — are we not compelled to charge 
upon him reckless ostentation and blasphemous pre- 
sumption, or else, discovering in these professions a 

* Matt. xi. 27. f Matt. xxvi. 28. 

X Matt. xxiv. 35. § Matt, xviii. 20, xxviii. 18. 

|| Matt. xvi. 27. ** Matt. xxv. 34. 

ft John iii. 13, xvi. 28, 29, xvii. 5. 

XX John v, 17, xiv. 9, v. 23, x. 22-31. Matt, xxviii. 19. 



264 GOD-MAN. 

partial interpretation of the titles before employed, 
must we not say that Jesus felt beyond a doubt that 
there was connected with him an essential substance, 
which in no respect differs from deity? 

Ay, more than this even, must not that Galilean arti- 
san have been the basest of deceivers, or filled with 
the grossest ignorance, or else have possessed the per- 
fectly clear conviction that he was essentially, nay, 
really — God ? 



VV.I. 

EARLY CHRISTIAN OPINION. 



IT is of no trifling importance to know what opin- 
ions respecting Jesus were entertained wliile Chris- 
tianity was sending its early morning blush over every 
part of the Roman empire. We have, fortunately, 
quite definite reports respecting the views of devout 
and intelligent men who were comparatively near the 
life and times of Jesus. In some instances they ob- 
tained definite facts and general information from first 
hands, and upon these, in connection with their own 
Christian experience and consciousness, formed their 
opinions. 

Next in point of importance to the views of the 
apostles should consideration be given, upon natural 
grounds at least, to those of the apostolic fathers, and 
indeed, to the great body of believers who followed the 
fathers, and were considered Christians in the apostolic 
sense. 

Among the earliest of these, whose writings were 
of note and influence, may be mentioned Barnabas, Ig- 
natius, Polycarp, Papias, Justin Martyr, and Irenseus. 

265 



266 GOD-MAN. 

In their time Christianity had comparatively little to 
do with scientific or philosophic statement. The The- 
ological School of Alexandria, which at a later time 
foisted upon Christianity various tenets of the prevail- 
ing philosophical systems, had not been established. 
The dawn-light of the age of doctrinal formulae which 
arose a little later, was scarcely yet discernible. It was 
a time of calm and childlike reliance, in which, how- 
ever, there was by no means a " full consciousness of 
the treasures of truth committed to it." It was, in fact, 
the closing period in the age of simple faith. 

As might be expected, there were, at the time, espe- 
cially in the church, scarcely any discussion respecting 
the essential divinity of Christ, the Trinity, or the Per- 
sonality of the Holy Ghost. These matters were not, 
within the church, called in question. In other words, 
the conviction that Jesus was a supernatural and divine 
being was wrought so thoroughly into the universal 
Christian consciousness that discussion and definition 
were deemed improprieties, and the simple New Tes- 
tament language was regarded as authoritative, suffi- 
cient, and satisfactory. 

When the Scriptures attributed to Christ eternity of 
existence, omnipresence, and omniscience, or omnipo- 
tence, or when, in the various New Testament formulae 
of benediction and baptism, Christ was associated 
with the Father and Spirit in terms of equality, those 
early Christians accepted the statements, were satisfied 
with them, attempted no formal analysis ; and conse- 
quently it should excite no surprise or difficulty that 
they did not reduce their belief to scientific statement. 
And much less should this absence of specific dogma 



MANIFESTATION. 267 

be construed into argument against evangelical faith. 
There is not the remotest ground for the claim that 
early Christian belief was not intense ; it was intensest. 
Beliefs are always stronger than statements, and strong- 
est when evidence is so overwhelming that no formal 
announcement or explanation is thought of. 

And more than this ; those doctrines which involve 
the divinity of Jesus, though in no way formulated, did, 
nevertheless, in an informal way, literally pervade all 
the writings of early Christians. Their songs breathe 
this thought, their sermons are filled with it, and their 
homilies are based upon it. " This faith had been 
decidedly asserted," says Guericke, " by the greater 
part of the church, although it had not always been 
enunciated and defended with strict accuracy and self- 
consistence." 

Investigations in the province of Monumental The- 
ology which are at the present time justly attracting 
no small degree of attention, show, also, that Christ, 
in hfs divine character, was really the central figure 
in the early church representation. He appears as the 
Ichthus, the Shepherd, the Alpha and Omega, the 
Eternal One, the Creator and the Final Ruler. 

Again, indirect and incidental ^statements are, as be- 
fore shown, in strength and force, often equivalent to 
direct representation. When Porphyry tells us that 
Christians " worship Christ as God ; " when Hierocles 
makes his formal charge against Christians, " You 
hold Christ to be God because he is reported to have 
restored a few blind men to sight, and to have done 
some other works of like kind ; " and when Pliny, in 
his account of the early Christians, mentions " a hymn 



268 GOD-MAN. 

which they sing to Christ as to a God," — their state- 
ments have all the force of direct assertion. Perhaps 
this is an instance where the indirect is even more sat- 
isfactory than the direct ; at least it would have an- 
swered the purpose no better had they said in so many 
words, These early Christians believe that Christ is God. 

The same is true respecting other doctrines of the 
church since formulated. When we read, in the old 
epistle to Diognetus, that God gave bfc his Son a ran- 
som for us ; " when Clement of Rome speaks of 
Christ's u righteousness covering our sins ; " when Ig- 
natius calls attention to the " God-blessed passion ; " 
when Justin Martyr tells us that " Christ bore the suf- 
fering of the whole race of man ; " and when Irenae.us 
alludes to the " Divine Son of Man, truly God and 
man, coming with voluntary self-sacrifice/' —we have 
all the evidence that any one in reason can demand 
necessary to establish the fact that the early church 
held the doctrine of vicarious atonement as really and 
tenaciously as it is held by the most orthodox churches 
of modern times.* 

Mr. Parker was willing to concede, without contro- 
troversy or qualification, that the Christ of the Gospels, 
as believed in by the infant church, was a supernatural 
or a superhuman Being. The language of Francis 
Newman is likewise very explicit. " All Christen- 

* We find similar expressions among the later Apologists. 
Tertullian alludes to Christ as " the Universal Priest of 
God." Cyril of Jerusalem says, " Christ took our sins in 
his own body." Cyril of Alexandria claimed that Jesus " de- 
stroyed by his cross the sentence of the old curse." Similar 
statements are found in Athanasius, Augustine, Ambrose. 



MANIFESTATION. 269 

dom," he says, " between the dates of A. D. 100 and 
A. D. 1850, with the exception of small eccentric colo- 
nies, has held Jesus to be essentially superhuman.* 

But, as more time intervened between the gospel 
facts and the advancing church, and as men's thoughts 
began to work upon the great problems involved, there 



* The statements of Irenaeus and Tertullian ought to settle 
all controversy respecting the attitude of the early church. 
Irenaeus gives the following as the belief of those, "who dili- 
gently keep the ancient tradition : " " Believing in one God, 
Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things in them, by 
Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who, through his most eminent 
love towards his creature, underwent that generation which 
was of a virgin, he by himself uniting man to God, and 
having suffered under Pontius Pilate, and risen again and 
taken up in splendor, will come again in glory, a Saviour of 
them that are saved, and a Judge of them that are judged, 
sending into eternal fire the perverters of truth, and the de- 
spisers of his Father, and of his own coming again." 

Tertullian also gives the following as "the rule that had 
been observed and adhered to from the very beginning of the 
gospel," — and it was "prior to all heretics that had been 
in the Christian church : " "Belief in one God, and that his 
Word was the Son of the one God ; who proceeded from him ; 
by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing 
was made ; that he was sent by or from the Father into the 
virgin, and from her was born Man and God. the Son of Man 
and the Son of God, and named Jesus Christ; that he suffered, 
that he died, that he was buried, according to the Scriptures, 
and raised up by the Father, and, taken up into heaven, where 
he sits at the right hand of the Father, and will come to judge 
the quick and the dead; who from thence sent, according to 
his promise from the Father, the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, 
the Sanctifier of their faith who believe in the Father, and 
Son, and Holy Ghost." 



2JO GOD-MAN. 

was a striving instinctively, and with more or less di- 
rectness, after a correct and intellectual statement of 
Christian faith. 

In these efforts commenced the development of the 
dogmatics of ecclesiastical history. It should not be 
overlooked that near the close of the second century, 
and especially at the beginning of the third, philoso- 
phy was almost entirely confined to the church. As 
might be expected, nay, from the nature of things as 
would inevitably be the case, Christian teachers, par- 
ticularly those versed in Platonism, were constantly 
occupied in various attempts to express, in dogmatic 
form, the early apostolic faith. And that sentiment re- 
specting Jesus which is common to every true Chris- 
tian, that pious instinct, we mean, which tells the regen- 
erated soul that there is perfect equality between Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost, and which as confidently asserts 
that there is but one God, would naturally be almost 
the first subject to receive attention, and be one of the 
first to be involved in ecclesiastical controversy. 

It should also be borne in mind that Christianity 
was, at the start, a new religion, and, as such, illegal. 
Though the period was remarkably lenient to all sys- 
tems, still there were limits even to this Roman tolera- 
tion. Public sentiment, through misunderstanding and 
misrepresentation, was not long in ripening into popu- 
lar and political hatred ; thence followed civil perse- 
cutions. But persecutions in a general way lead to 
definite positions, and compel definite statements ; 
hence also the rise of church dogma and formula. 

Again, during the first centuries there were sceptics 
and scoffers, as there had been in the time of our Sa- 



MANIFESTATION. 271 

viour, and as there have been ever since. From this 
source came the written attacks against Christianity.* 

As soon as these writings appeared, Christian schol- 
ars came forward in vindication of their views, which 
had been thus assailed. The defence took either the 
form of a statement and exposition of the doctrines of 
Christianity for the use of the common people, or was 
of an official character, a sort of plea for the new system 
before emperors and subordinate rulers ; the effort be- 
ing in this case to correct the judgment of civil au- 
thorities respecting the new religion and its adherents. 

But in either instance, a measurably clear and definite 
statement of Christian faith was demanded, and the 
requirement, so far as possible, complied with. In the 
main, however, these efforts were apologetic rather 
than expository. 

A brief survey of the later historic fields upon which 
Christian truth took dogmatic shape, at the same time 
resulting in the development of church heresies, which 
are often the merest differences of opinion, is all that is 
necessary to our purpose, and all that our limits allow.f 

A few facts recalled to mind will throw needed light 
upon the condition of Christianity at that early period. 

Converts were from both paganism and Judaism ; but 
Grecian and Israelitish culture were throughout an- 
tagonistic. Christianity thus stood, in a sense, be- 
tween paganism, which admitted many gods and dis- 
tinctions, and Judaism, which admitted no distinctions 
whatever in the divine nature. Here, then, between 
the two extremes, would, of necessity, be waged a war 
of conflicting opinions within the church itself the 

* Appendix, P. f Appendix, Q^ 



272 GOD-MAN. 

moment any attempt was made to reduce Christian 
consciousness to formal statement ; there would also 
result to either party, upon the presentation of the 
views of the other, uncertainty and obscurity. 

As might be expected, differences respecting the 
person of Christ arranged themselves into three dis- 
tinct classes. First, admissions of a real human nature, 
involving tendencies to explain away the divine ; sec- 
ond, admissions of a divine nature, involving tenden- 
cies to explain away the human ; third, admissions 
of both a human and divine nature, involving various 
attempts, many of which will not abide the test of strict 
scrutiny, to unite the two natures into one unit or unity. 

The dogmatic notion - quite prevalent among the 
Jewish Christians that Christ was human, — literally 
in the line of David, — but that he was made divine 
by some spiritual elevation, corresponds with the first 
class. The Nazarene and Ebionitish sects show how 
prevalent were these ideas. 

But, on the other hand, the Gentile Christians, espe- 
cially those who retained their Dualistic and Gnostic 
notions, naturally entertained dogmatic opinions in 
direct antagonism to those above stated, and fall under 
the second class. To the converted pagan philosopher 
the easy solution of all involved difficulties would not 
be in elevation, but in emanation : with this idea he 
had been familiar from childhood. Hence there was 
more frequent doubt respecting Christ's humanity, than 
divinity from all quarters where Gnosticism had pre- 
vailed. 

Clement of Alexandria, for instance, held that the 
body of Jesus was not sustained by ordinary agencies, 



MANIFESTATION. 2 73 , 

but by the Holy Ghost. Origen ascribed to his hu- 
manity qjalities Which would remove him in every 
respect from ordinary human nature. The Docetae 
flatly denied Christ's humanity, making of it " a mere 
vision," the u phantasm of a body," but gave all promi- 
nence to the supernatural and real element in Christ's 
appearance. 

Not far removed in essence is this view from the 
Manichean system, whose dogmatism was the natural 
outgrowth of an effort to blend Christianity, not with 
Gnosticism, as above, but with the religions of ancient 
Asia. These Manicheans were Buddhist-Zoroastrian- 
ChristianSo They believed Christ to be God truly, but 
man in appearance. The Son of God came and took 
the form of man. He appeared to men as a man, though 
he was not man. He was not born, because God could 
not be born ; this supposition they thought dishonorable 
to him. He was, therefore, pure deity ; he was God 
the Father. 

These Manicheans were also self-consistent in hold- 
ing that Christ's death was not real, but a semblance. 
Manicheanism appears, then, to have been a vigorous 
effort to preserve intact, at any doctrinal cost, the unity 
of divine consciousness. 

Without much difficulty we may bring under the 
third class the fci modification theory," represented by 
Paul of Samosata, though it may with almost equal 
propriety be referred to the first class. Jesus, accord- 
ing to this view, was a man, but had united with him 
a divine influence, an inspiration of God. 

But this divine part was " God before ages." Jesus 
was, therefore, u God-perfect according to nature and 
18 



274 GOD-MAN. 

truth, and not first man, and then God, but first God, 
and then becoming, or coming into man for us." 

A clearer type belonging to the third class is Sabel- 
lianism. This term has come to be a general designa- 
tion, covering all those who deny that there is more 
than one person in the Godhead, and who claim that 
the Son and Holy Spirit, though divine, are only di fie r- 
ent operations of one God, the Father almighty. 

The Christology of Sabellianism involves the follow- 
ing leading points : The Godhead of Father and Son 
were originally derived from the same source. Father 
and Son are, in essence, adelpha, of the same brother- 
hood. The Son was Thean-thropos, God-man, — in- 
carnate Logos. The essential personality of the God- 
head was regarded as absolutely permanent, though 
relatively transitory. 

Sabellianism was, from the outset, it will be seen, 
the antithesis of the Nazarean views respecting Christ, 
and was started in opposition to them. It was com- 
paratively free from the cant of pagan schools and 
foreign philosophy ; in many respects the doctrine 
seems to do no violence to, but to harmonize with, 
general Christian consciousness. 

It is the opinion of not a few thinkers, that if the 
views of Noetus and Beryllus, as systematized in Sabel- 
lianism, had peaceably taken possession of the church, 
Christianity would have been much earlier and far 
more correctly defined than it was under the handling 
of the Gnostic and Platonic fathers. 

The opposition to these Sabellian theories came at 
first, as might be expected, from the polemic school of 
Alexandria. It found such representatives as Diony- 



MANIFESTATION. 275 

sius, Athanasius, Basil, and Hilary. It was carried so 
far as to charge upon Sabellius the guilt of blasphemy 
against the Father Almighty, of which at heart he was 
as innocent as any who opposed him. 

The system which may be regarded as the direct 
antithesis of Sabellianism was made up of certain 
Alexandrian views, which later, under the handling of 
Arius, became Arianism. 

Arianism, in its Christology, placed the Son at the 
head of finite beings, and gave him a beginning before 
the beginning of all things temporal.* 

The idea of unit, in distinction from the true Trini- 
tarian idea of uitity, led to the unfortunate mistake of 
Arianism, towards which, it is true, the system tended. 
We find it soon siding over into those regions where 
no partitions in the God-head could be allowed ; hence 
three separate essences were claimed ; triunity was 
abandoned, and tendencies towards tritheism and poly- 
theism began to show themselves, and consequently 
and very properly the system awakened opposition. 

We are now brought to the heart of the polemic 
period in church history (250-730 A. D.), and to the 
great ecclesiastical Council of Nice (325 A. D.). 

The events which then transpired are, in some re- 
spects, the most famous and interesting presented to 
us in the entire range of ecclesiastical history, but in 
other respects they are the most humiliating. 

* Origen would have embraced this view, in all probabil- 
ity, had not his philosophy required him to make God im- 
mutable, which, in his mind, meant that the Son, and every- 
thing else as well, must be without beginning. Christ, in 
Origen's view, was eternal, but no more so than the dust 
beneath his feet. 



: / 



6 GOD-MAN. 



Platonism, as we have already seen, prevailed in all 
the scientific and practical theology of the day ; and a 
giant must be the man who could cope successfully 
with those devout, acute Gnostic and Platonic leaders 
and educators of the people. 

The details of the difficulty between Arius and his 
bishop, the calling and assembling of the council, the 
sharp controversy between Arius and Athanasius, are 
matters of intensest interest ; but anything like a crit- 
ical review is precluded from our discussion ; the gen- 
eral features only can be noticed, and that briefly. 

There appeared in the council three classes of 
opinion, known as Arianism, which found its rep- 
resentative and advocate in Arius ; Semi-Arianism, 
which was under the leadership of Eusebius ; and 
Athanasianism, or the so-called orthodox party, which 
recognized the young and talented Athanasius as its 
leader. In one point of view the three parties stood 
together ; that is, they were united in their opposi- 
tion to Judaism on the one hand, and paganism on 
the other. But in other respects, the views entertained 
seem decidedly antagonistic. 

The essence of Arianism, as represented in the 
council, consists in making Christ subordinate to God 
in some respects, chiefly in those growing out of the 
view that he was a created being. Notwithstanding 
this idea of the creation of Christ, the position assigned 
him by Arius is one of superlative grandeur. To say 
that Christ possessed antecedent existence, massive 
greatness of soul, or that he was superhuman or 
supernatural, would not be sufficiently strong state- 
ments to express the view of Arius. 



MANIFESTATION. 277 

Some idea of the approach Arius made towards 
modern orthodoxy may be gathered from the fact that 
he willingly indorsed the creed first presented to the 
council — that of Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea. It 
reads, " I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, 
Maker of all things, both visible and invisible, and in 
one Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, God of 
God, Light of Light, Life of Life, the Only-begotten 
Son, the First-born of every creature, begotten by the 
Father before all worlds, by whom also all things were 
made, who, for our salvation, was made flesh and 
lived amongst men, and suffered, and rose again on the 
third day, and ascended to the Father, and shall come 
in glory to judge the quick and the dead. And I 
believe in one Holy Ghost. Believing each of these 
to be and to have existence, the Father only the Father, 
the Son only the Son, and the Holy Ghost only the 
Holy Ghost." * " 

* It is of interest to bear in mind that this creed, to which 
Arius raised no objection, was the creed of the church in 
Palestine; it had probably been handed down — at least the 
basis of it — from those primitive churches planted by the " 
hands of the apostles. And it is intensely interesting to 
notice the close resemblance it bears to the expression in the 
Assembly's Shorter Catechism, 4t There are three persons in 
the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and 
these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in 
power and glory;" it also harmonizes with the articles of 
faith held by one of the largest bodies of modern Christians : 
''There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without 
body or parts, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, the 
maker and preserver of all things, visible and invisible. And 
in unity of this Godhead, there are three persons, of one 
substance, power, and eternity, the Father, the Son, and the 



278 GOD-MAN. 

So much being admitted by Arius respecting the 
deity of Christ, it is matter of no surprise that he did 
not, in that age of dogmatic construction, abandon his 
opinions, though he allowed some verbal changes to 
be introduced. Nor do we wonder that his views 
under the title Arianism flourished for more than three 
hundred years, that they constituted the prevailing 
doctrine for two centuries in Spain, that they sat 
for a long time upon the throne east and w^est, and 
that they held sway among the Goths, the Vandals, 

Holy Ghost. The Son, who is the Word of the Father, the 
very and eternal God, of one. substance with the Father, took 
man's nature in the womb of the blessed virgin; so that two 
whole and perfect natures, that is to say 5 the Godhead and 
manhood, were joined together in one person, never to be 
divided, whereof is one Christ, very God and very man, who 
truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, to reconcile 
his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original 
guilt, but also for actual sins of men." 

It should also be borne in mind that the creed of the Semi- 
Arian council, in which Anus was reinstated after his deposi- 
tion by the emperor, is, on the whole, highly satisfactory to 
the most orthodox modern believer. It reads thus : " We 
believe, conformably to the evangelical and apostolic tradi- 
tion, in one God, the Father Almighty, the Framer and 
Maker and Preserver of the Uni verse, from whom are all 
things. And in our Lord Jesus Christ, his Only-begotten 
Son, God, by whom are all things: who was begotten before 
all ages from the Father, God from God, whole for whole, 
sole for sole, but unalterable and unchangeable, unvarying 
image of the Godhead, substance, will, power, and glory of 
the Father." 

This creed anathematized those who say that "the Son 
is from other substance, and not from God," that " there was 
a time when he was not," or " that Christ is not God." 



MANIFESTATION'. 279 

Burgundians, and the Alani, and did not disappear 
until about the close of the eighth century.* 

We have already suggested the substance of the 
second class of views, the Semi-Arian. They may be 
more definitely stated thus : " The Son of God differs 
from all other creatures, not merely in degree, but also 
in essence : though eternal generation may be predi- 
cated, still the generation of the Son out of the essence 
of the Father is denied, because it leads to the scholas- 
tic theory of emanation ; and it was thought that the 
union of Father and Son in one nature, the principle 
upon which emanation was based, would annihilate 
all personal distinctions in the Trinity." The party 
entertaining these views was very large and influ- 
ential. 

The third class of views finds embodiment in Atha- 
nasianism, and maintained the opinion that Christ is a 
being logically inferior to God, and begotten eternally. 
The subordination — for subordination was clearly 
taught — differs from that of Arius in the substitution 
of the term generation in place of creation. 

It is highly probable that all parties would have 
subscribed to the creed presented by Athanasius and 

* In view of all these facts, orthodoxy need not stop to 
dispute it. or at least need not be greatly alarmed, when 
opponents claim that Erasmus, Grotius, Milton. Newton, 
Locke, Clarke, Lardner, and Priestley, Mrs. Ware, and Flor- 
ence Nightingale were Arians. If modern opponents of 
evangelical views will indorse the substance of either the 
creed of Eusebius or the Semi-Arian creed subsequently 
issued, they must logically reach and rest upon orthodox 
grounds. 



280 GOD-MAN. 

his friends, had it not been for the single term trans- 
lated same substance.* 

To this the Arian party could not give assent, not 
because they thought it stated too emphatically the 
essential deity of Christ, but because it had been pre- 
viously objected to by Eusebius of Nicomedia, a 
prominent Arian, because it had been previously con- 
demned by the church, and because it appeared to the 
opponents of Athanasius to be, to employ their own 

* The following was the eed presented by this party to 
the council : "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, 
Maker of all things, both visible and invisible; and in one 
Lord Jesus Christ, begotten of the Father (only begotten, 
that is to say, of the substance of the Father, God of God), 
Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, 
being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things 
were made (both things in heaven and things in earth) — 
who, for us men and for our salvation, came down and was 
made flesh, and was made man, suffered, and rose again on 
the third day, went up into the heavens, and is to come again 
to judge the quick and dead. And in the Holy Ghost. 
(But those who say there was when he was not, and before 
he was begotten he was not, or who profess that the Son 
of God is a different person, or substance, or that he is cre- 
ated, or changeable, or variable, are anathematized by the 
Catholic church.)" 

The portions of the creed included in parentheses were 
subsequently omitted. 

The so-called Athanasian creed, which was a later, and 
probably a Spanish production, is the following: "We wor- 
ship one God in Trinity, and trinity in unity, neither con- 
founding the persons nor dividing the substance. For there 
is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another 
of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one, the glory equal, the 
majesty co-eternal." 



MANIFESTATIONS 28 1 

words — M unscriptural," " heretical," " materialistic," 
" Sabellian," and u Montanistic." Nor should we 
much wonder at this opposition, when we consider 
through what strange vicissitudes this controversial 
word had passed. " It was born and nurtured, if not 
in the home, at least on the threshold, of heresy. It 
first distinctly appeared in the statement given by 
Irenaeus of the doctrines of Valentinus ; then for a 
moment acquired a more orthodox reputation in the 
writings of Dionysius and Theognostus of Alexan- 
dria ; then it was colored with a dark shade by asso- 
ciation with the teaching of Manes ; next proposed as 
a test of orthodoxy at the Council of Antioch against 
Paul of Samosata ; and then by that same council was 
condemned as Sabellian." 

The more we review this subject, the more a pity 
does it seem that men who at heart differed so little 
should, in consequence of their terminology and met- 
aphysics, wage such fierce and protracted conflicts. 
It was not with these early disputants a question of 
what Christ was, but how he became such ; not a 
question of nature so much as of manner. 

We venture the assertion that in any other age, ex- 
cepting one of acknowledged doctrinal development, 
differences so slight and unimportant as those between 
Arius and Athanasius would not have been allowed to 
involve in controversy so bitter men of such superior 
intelligence, and, in other respects, of such generous 
views. Controversy too often arises in consequence 
of knowing about one half what one ought. 

In saying this we are aware to what a minimum we 
are reducing the doctrinal differences in that contro- 



282 GOD-MAN. 

versy ; we are also aware of the charge that will be 
sure to follow, that we have surrendered the entire 
field of patristic theology into the hands of Unitarian- 
ism. Our only reply is, If Unitarians will accept the 
surrender and take the consequences, they are more 
than welcome. 

We lose nothing by being fair and above-board, and 
fair dealing, we are free to confess, upon the ground 
usually occupied by church historians, does not make 
out a very strong case in favor of modern Trinitarian- 
ism, especially when that case is made to depend upon 
opinions fii-o and con as related to the use of a single 
word. 

In fine, it is unphilosophical to expect a solution 
of these metaphysical difficulties in the forenoon of 
ecclesiastical controversy. Five hundred years of 
thought and talk are none too many in which, by the 
gradual unfolding of the Christian sentiment, to frame 
into satisfactory scientific statement the grand and eter- 
nally true, though forever mysterious, doctrine of the 
Trinity and other doctrines connected therewith. 

But in making these concessions and admissions, let 
it not be presumed that it is on our part an act of 
unqualified disinterestedness. We have pursued this 
course because we believe it correct, and also for the 
purpose of asking a return of more, really, than We 
have given away ; and candor, we are quite sure, will 
comply, even if the demand seems immodest. 

Before the claim is formally presented, however, 
we revert for a moment to certain phases of the his- 
toric scene through which we have passed. From 
this commanding point of view now reached, we are 



MANIFESTATION. 283 

enabled clearly to see that Sabellianism, in order to 
escape from the Jewish tendency, went much too far 
towards the admission of a twofold nature in the 
Godhead ; that Arianism, in order to retain the divine 
unity, went quite too far towards the denial of all 
divinity. in the Logos; and that the Nicene fathers, 
in their violent opposition to Arianism, overlooked 
the real issue, made the whole subject one of technical 
terms, and occupied a position that must be abandoned. 

Or, expressing the case differently, Arianism, at the 
council, was in poise ; should it swing one way, it 
would becomje monotheistic ; if the other way, it 
would become existing orthodoxy. Athanasianism 
was in poise also ; swinging one way, it would be- 
come Sabellianism ; the other way, orthodoxy. 

Athanasius was in danger of losing sight of the 
divine unity, which w T ould have given to the w 7 orld 
polytheism. Arius was in danger of overlooking the 
divinity of Christ, which would have deprived the 
world of a Saviour, and have returned God to the 
dim and inaccessible heavens. 

Though each was in position of danger, neither 
really went so far as to reach the extreme point ; still 
both were about equally wrong in the leading steps 
caken. Arius was no farther from the truth in saying 
chat Christ was subordinate, because created, than was 
Athanasius in his unintended, though logical, denial 
of the supreme deity of Christ in consequence of rep- 
resenting him as begotten. 

Arius, it is worth observing, upon certain admitted 
premises seemed strongly intrenched. Taking the 
first position, that of Origen and the fathers after 



284 GOD-MAN. 

him, which was, that Christ was a secondary, that is, 
derived essence, — " light of light," begotten, — and the 
second position, that of the Nicene fathers, viz., there 
are but two essences in the universe, created and un- 
created, the third position, that of Arius, logically 
followed ; that is, Christ, though he stands in the 
grand forefront of all creation, was created. 

The sharp and indirect questions put by Eunomius 
to those who advocated eternal generation, in distinc- 
tion from creation, were never well answered. u God," 
said this reasoner, " begat the Son, the Son meantime 
being, or not being ; if not being, than he was not 
eternal ; if being, then no need of a generation. " 
Again, u If there never was when the Son was not, 
and if he is eternal and co-existent with the Father, 
why call him Son? why not call him brother?" 

We repeat, then, both parties were in error. u The 
scholastic divines have said, without any meaning, 
that Christ is eternally generated. But the Scriptures 
have made no such impression upon the majority of 
believers." * 

Eternal generation is felt, by many, to be little other 
than " eternal nonsense." f 

These scholastic divines, it must be confessed, did 
signally fail to meet the demands of the religious con- 
sciousness of Christendom. They failed also to con- 
form to the teachings of the New Testament, because 

* Park. 

t It is now conceded by the ablest divines that the term 
"Son" may be applied to the second person in the Trinity 
only retrospectivel} r or prophetically — an illustration of the 
text, "slain from the foundation of the worjd." 



MANIFESTATION. 285 

they have not in reality, whatever their intention, pre- 
sented each person of the Trinity as fully equal to the 
other. u And in whatever shape we present the idea 
of derivation, whether we call it by the name of 
generation, procession, emanation, or by any other 
like appellation, still the idea remains of dependence. 
A derived God cannot be a self-existent God, and a 
dependent God cannot be an independent God." * - 

Is it retorted that we are making heretics of the 
orthodox party, and forming an orthodox party out of 
heretics? Nay ; but we do plainly say, " that nothing 
respecting the indispensable attributes of self-existence 
and independence is gained by going over from the 
camp of the Arians to that of the Niceans." 

" As soberly contemplated by us of the present 
day," some one, perhaps Steuart, or Schleiermachcr, 
has remarked, " it is really a matter of comparatively- 
small importance whether Nicene or Arian views now 
obtain ascendency." 

But we also claim that many of these heretics, hi 
their formal statements, appear to stand within the 
boundaries of the Westminster Confessions of faith. 

That they were for the most part devout men, and 
entertaining views less colored with Gnostic and Asi- 
atic philosophy, that they clung, in some instances, 
more closely to Christian conviction than did many of 
their opponents, must be admitted. We need say noth- 
ing more in their favor ; we could not well say less. 

But it is at this point we ask an equivalent in return 
for the concession made. 

It is this. Notwithstanding the errors of the scholas- 

* Steuart. 



286 GOD-MAN. 

tic fathers, they did, on the other hand, in many 
expressions, logically admit one divine essence in the 
Trinity ; they applied the divine attributes to Christ, 
and they worshipped him. This need not surprise us, 
for their Christian consciousness was nearer right than 
their dogmatic formula. " The language of theology," 
as Froude rightly says, " hovering, as it generally does, 
between extravagance and conventionality, must not 
be scanned too narrowly." 

But more than this ; the fathers did not mean to be 
Arians ; they meant to denounce Arianism ; and they 
did not mean to be Tritheists. Their writings abound 
in sentiments opposed to that doctrine. They meant 
to believe in the real divinity of the Lord Christ.* 

* The same is to be said of early Christian belief in the 
Holy Ghost as of the deity of Christ; it was not formally 
stated. "The doctrine of the Holy Spirit," says Baumgar- 
ten, "remained a long time undecided. It lay near to the 
first church in a practical .respect only." 

Says Neander, " Some believed him to be a mere power; 
some confounded the idea of person with the charism ; others 
supposed him to be a creature; others believed him to be 
God; and others still were undecided. The practical recog- 
nition of him, however, as the principle of the divine life in 
man, was almost universal in the early church." 

That is, the essential idea involved in the doctrine of the 
Trinity, and happily expressed in the Westminster Confes- 
sion, is the doctrine that has held the body of Christians 
together since the day of Pentecost. An effort to formulate 
the idea is what has divided them. 

This doctrine is the distinguishing mark of Christian truth, 
defining it against polytheism on the one hand, which gives 
us a God distracted by multiplicity, and against the cold He- 
brew and Arabian monotheism on the other, which gives us 



MANIFESTATION. 287 

We go still farther. The great body of the church, 
including Sabellians, Arians, and Athanasians, espe- 
cially including the mass of intelligent Christians, 
whether learned or otherwise, also including the great 
body of intelligent theologians who, subsequently to 
the Council of Nice, advocated its symbol, really in- 
tended to recognize the divinity, special and dis- 
tinct, of the Lord Jesus. They were often heathen 
in the head, but Christians at heart. Had they lived 
in our day, the majority, we doubt not, would have 
subscribed without hesitation or reservation to the 
orthodox articles of faith, as do the great mass of 
those who are now born into the kingdom of Christ. 

Such, then, were the early church opinions respect- 
ing the one whose manifestation we are considering. 

From all quarters, from the humble Christian whose 
voice was never heard in controversy, and who, when 
questioned sharply as to Christ's nature, could best 
reply, u I cannot tell, but I can die for him," and from 
the ablest controversialists the world has ever known, 
from orthodox and from heretic, early history through, 
the report, if we mistake not, is everywhere essen- 
tially the same ; and the united assertion is heard high 
and clear above all controversy — Jesus of Nazareth 
was superhuman, supernatural, and divine. 

an insulated self; raising it equally above Persian dualism 
and Hindoo tritheism and the unconscious All of pantheism. 
It gives us a being whose essence is unity, — a unit, — and 
yet something else which is more than a process, and more 
than an association of names. 



VI. 

MODERN OPINIONS AND ESTIMATES. 



IN seeking conclusions respecting the life and charac- 
ter of Jesus, it is apparent to all that modern admis- 
sions and opinions cannot be ignored ; nay, that they 
must enter quite largely into anything like correct esti- 
mates is self-evident. The vast array of public opinion 
which through ancient and medieval times indorses the 
conclusion that Jesus was a manifestation fulfilling con- 
ditions never before realized, though always longed 
for, is legitimate and weighty, but must give place 
to other testimony less direct and friendly, but more 
important in the judgment of doubters. 

The convictions of acknowledged evangelical think- 
ers and scholars, a mere statement of which would fill not 
merely a book, but a library, merit likewise a promi- 
nent place in the general argument. But we waive 
these also for the present, and consider the admissions 
of those chiefly w T ho are reckoned among the opponents 
of modern evangelical faith, including, at the same 
time, a class of eminent men who are not in sympathy 
with Rationalism, and yet who are not in their belief 

28S 



MANIFESTATION. 289 

regarded as orthodox. A few German names first 
claim attention.* 

Les^sing, who introduced, it must be confessed, 
much confusion into the theological world, and whom 
all free-thinkers regard as one of their number, especial- 
ly in his opposition to evangelical Christianity, says, — 

" A better teacher must come, and snatch the worn- 
out Hornbook (elementary book) from the hands of 
the child. Christ came. 

" And so Christ became the first reliable, -practical 
Teacher of the Immortality of the Soul. 

" The first reliable Teacher. Reliable because of 
the prophecies which seemed fulfilled in him ; reliable 
because of the miracles which he wrought ; reliable 
because of his own reviving after a death by which he 
had sealed his doctrine. Whether we now can prove 
this restoration to life, these* miracles — that I leave un- 
decided, as I leave undecided who the person of 
this Christ was. All this may have been significant 
then for the reception of his doctrine ; but now it is 
no more so significant for the recognition of the truth 
of this doctrine. 

" The first practical Teacher. For it is one thing 
to suppose, to wish, to believe, the Immortality of the 
Soul, as a philosophical speculation ; it is another to 
direct one's inner and outer actions thereby (according 

* We are confined, of course, in this field of investigation, 
to the German, French, and English speaking people. Ger- 
many is given the first place because it is, as to sceptical criti- 
cism, first in importance, though England and France are 
both in advance as to historic order. 

19 



29O GOD-MAN. 

to it). And this, at least, Christ taught for the first 
time." * 

Scarcely less unevangelical is Immanuel Kant thought 
to be. But when some one instituted a comparison 
between his morals and those of Jesus, he expressed a 
religious horror at the sight of his name in such con- 
nection, and begged his friend to erase the offensive 
parallel, assigning the following reason : — 

u One of those names, before which the heavens 
bow, is sacred, while the other is only that of a poor 
scholar endeavoring to explain to the best of his abili- 
ties the teachings of his Master." 

Schelling, who is always classed among pantheists 
and unbelievers, admits without qualification that the 

* Lessing's view of the Trinity as involving the eternally 
begotten Son may not, in this connection, be out of place. 

" As to the doctrine of the Trinity. How, if this doctrine 
should, after numberless deviations, right and left, bring the 
human understanding finally on the way to perceive that God, 
in the understanding, wherein finite things are 0?ie, can by no 
possibility be One — that also his Unity must be a transcen- 
dental Unity, which does not exclude a kind of Plurality ? . . . 
Consequently God can have either no complete conception 
(representation, Vorstellung) of himself, or this complete con- 
ception is as much actual by necessity, as he himself is. . . . If, 
now, my image (in the mirror) had all, all without exception, 
which I have, would it then also be a mere empty representa- 
tion, or not rather a true doubling (Verdopplung) of my- 
self ? If I believe that I perceive a similar doubling in God, 
perhaps I do not err so much, but rather speech is inadequate 
to my notions . . . certainly the idea could hardly be ex- 
pressed more comprehensibly and more suitably, than by the 
appellation (Benenniing) of a Son, whom God begets from 
eternity." 



MANIFESTATION. 29 1 

advent of Jesus was u the turning-point of the world's 
history." " Jesus Christ,'' he says, " was a living word," 
an " eternal discourse." 

Fichte, the " sceptic and atheist," pays Jesus the 
highest compliment one man of genius can pay anoth- 
er, making him the original propounder of his own 
system of philosophy. He also says that Jesus " did 
more than all other philosophers in bringing heavenly 
morality into the hearts and homes of common men." 
" Till the end of time, all the sensible will bow low 
before this Jesus of Nazareth, and all will humbly 
acknowledge the exceeding glory of this great phe- 
nomenon." " His followers are nations and genera- 
tions." 

One is hardly disposed to classify F. H. Jacobi 
among sceptics ; but clearly enough he was only in 
part Christian. He entertained to the last of life grave 
suspicions in reference to positive Christianity. Never- 
theless he bowed with reverence before the life and 
character of the Lord Jesus. 

While commending the representation which Clau- 
dius had made of Jesus, he says, — 

u What a picture ! What sublime and touching 
contrasts ! And what force of beauty, of mildness, 
and of majesty in the combined features of this perfect 
ideal of united divinity and humanity ! " 

Richter, though recognized as a satirist of orthodox 
Christianity, calls Jesus " the purest of the mighty, 
the mightiest of the pure, who with his pierced hands 
raised empires from their foundations, turned the 
stream of history from its old channels, and still con- 
tinues to rule and guide the ages." 



292 GOD-MAN. 

Goethe, the " Liberal," designated also the u German 
Voltaire," a writer whom all modern opposers heed as 
a most worthy oracle, applies to Jesus the bold titles, 
" Divine Man," and " The Holy One." Alluding to. 
the sufferings of Jesus, he says, " We draw a veil over 
them, because we reverence them so highly." 

United with Richter and Goethe in the realm of 
polite literature is Novalis,* externally a Protestant, 
inclining towards Catholicism, but often advocating an 
" indefinite pantheism." He is said by his biographer 
to be " a stranger to ail affectation and hypocrisy." 

With many other distinguished Germans, he always 
addressed Jesus as his " Lord." Speaking of his death, 
he says, " Christ was the greatest martyr of our species ; 
through him has martyrdom become infinitely signifi- 
cant and holy." 

De Wette, in this same category of destructive minds, 
though at many points bitterly opposed to extreme Ra- 
tionalism, at least respecting its view of Christ, says, 
"Jesus is the blameless and the sinless one." 

Hegel is quoted in support of afl sorts of errors, and 
regarded by not a few as one of the most subtle an- 
tagonists of the Christian faith. Yet his biographer 
says, in reply to those who claimed that Hegel's 
system was far removed from Christianity, u To us 
who have learned to know Hegel's relation to theolo- 
gy from the beginning, there is nothing surprising in 
the fact that he was convinced that in his speculation 
he was not only not in contradiction to the essence of 
the Christian faith, but rather in unison with it." 

* Friedrich Ludwig Von Hardenburg. 



MANIFESTATION. 293 

He claimed that his system furnished a scientific 
basis for what are called u evangelical doctrines." 

He looked upon Christ — employing his own words 
— " as that person in whose self-consciousness the unity 
of the Divine and Human first came forth, and with an 
energy, that, in the whole course of his life and char- 
acter, diminished to the very lowest possible degree 
all limitations of this unity. In this respect he stands 
alone and unequalled in the world's history." 

Strauss, u the coryphseus of modern scepticism," may 
be allowed to close the list of German rationalistic 
thinkers.* Notwithstanding his extreme opposition, 
he is free to confess that Jesus, u among the improvers 
of ideal humanity, stands in the very first class, . . . 
and remains, the highest model of religion within the 
reach of our thought ; and no perfect piety is possible 
without his presence'in the heart." 

The large class of Germans, who, amid professional 
and other duties, have taken no positive attitude re- 
specting the deity of Jesus, and who have occupied 
such positions as to be claimed by both sides of the 
controversy, find an able and satisfactory representa- 
tive in Chevalier Bunsen. We allow his biographer 
and reviewer to state his position. 

" It is more than gratifying, u he says, " to reflect that, 

* Mr. Parker's estimate of the great work of Strauss, the 
Life of Jesus, though disagreeing with it, is undoubtedly, not 
far from correct. " It is the most remarkable work that has 
appeared in theology for the last one hundred and fifty years," 
and of such a character as to "make an epoch in theological 
affairs." To the orthodox mind the work is exceedingly 
erroneous and all its tendencies destructive. 



294 GOD-MAN. 

if Bunsen pained the hearts of certain of Christ's chil- 
dren on earth by what seemed an insufficient faith in 
the evidence of his resurrection, his thought on his 
death-bed was of Christ only, and his mind overflowed 
with enraptured love for his Lord and Master. ' Up- 
ward — upward ! ' he exclaimed ; ' it becomes not 
darker, but always brighter. God is Life, Love ; 
Love that wills — Will that loves. Christies recog- 
noscitur Victor, Christus est Victor?" * 

We will not pause at this point to press the position, 
but simply ask, in a word, What estimates shall be placed 
upon the admissions of these profound thinkers ? Were 
they carried away with mere sentiment ? Rather were 
they not under deep conviction that Jesus, whatever 
he was, fulfilled conditions never before attained by 
humanity. 

From German we pass to French writers, allowing 
the same general methods to govern our classifications 
and quotations. 

* Spinoza, the father of modern pantheism, the man of 
practical piety and profound thought, though not a German, 
having been born in Amsterdam and of Jewish parentage, 
has, nevertheless, exercised such influence upon German 
thought, that he is almost naturalized. Novalis, Schleier- 
macher, Lessing, and Goethe, have acknowledged his intel- 
lectual supremacy. Novalis calls him the "God-intoxicated 
man; "and Schleiermacher calls upon all thinkers to unite 
with him in offering " a lock of hair to the manes of the holy 
but persecuted Spinoza." His confession respecting Jesus 
may find its place in this list, and is the following: — 

"To know the ideal Christ, namely, the eternal wisdom 
of God, which is manifested in all things, . . . especially in 
Jesus Christ, — this alone is necessary." 



MANIFESTATION. 295 

Rousseau, who was in some respects m sympathy 
w r ith Christianity, and in other respects antagonistic to 
it, who was deist and also idealist, asks, " if it can be 
possible that the sacred personage whose history the 
Scriptures contain should be himself a mere man." 
" When Plato describes his imaginary righteous man," 
he continues " loaded with all the punishments of 
guilt, yet meriting the highest rewards of virtue, he 
describes exactly the character of Jesus Christ." 

The comparison Rousseau institutes between Christ 
and Socrates is almost too well known to justify repeti- 
tion, yet we venture its quotation. 

" What a difference between the son of Sophronis- 
cus and the son of Mary ! Socrates dies with honor, 
surrounded by his^ disciples, listening to the most ten- 
der words — the easiest death that one could wish to 
die. Jesus dies in pain, dishonored, mocked, the object 
of universal cursing- — the most horrible death which 
one could fear. At the receipt of the cup of poison, 
Socrates blesses him who could not give it to him with- 
out tears ; Jesus, while suffering the sharpest pains, 
prays for his most bitter enemies. If Socrates lived and 
died like a philosopher, Jesus lived and died like a God." 

F. Pecant, another French writer, who boldly and 
frequently assails orthodoxy, admits, to employ his own 
language, that " Christ's moral character rose beyond 
comparison above that of any other great man of an- 
tiquity. . . . Jesus lives in the house of his heavenly 
Father, and never loses sight of the invisible world. . . . 
He was the master of all because he is really their 
brother. His moral life is wholly penetrated by God." 

Jouffroy, one of the profoundest thinkers of the 



296 GOD-MAN. 

French eclectic school, unhesitatingly admits that the 
advent of Christ is the " only thing active and diffu- 
sive " in society. He agrees with Vinet that it was, 
and is, u the gravitation of the moral world." 

Ernest Renan stands out so boldly in his opposition 
to revealed religion and a supernatural Christ, and yet 
has investigated the subject so extensively, and has 
said so much which seems in direct antagonism to his 
main position and philosophy, that we shall be par- 
doned for quoting here and there, and more at length 
than from many others who are less noted. Renan, 
in his most famous work, The Life of Jesus, says, — 

" Jesus has no visions ; God does not speak to him 
from without. God is in him ; he feels that he is with 
God, and he draws from his heart what he says of his 
Father. He lives in the bosom of God by uninter- 
rupted communication: he does* not see him, but he 
understands him without need of thunder and burning 
bush like Moses, of a revealing tempest like Job, of an 
oracle like the old Greek sages, of a familiar genius 
like Socrates, or of an angel Gabriel like Mohammed. 
The imagination and hallucination of a St. Theresa, for 
example, here go for nothing. The intoxication of the 
Soufi, proclaiming himself identical with God, is also 
an entirely different thing. . . . Between Thee and God ? 
there will be no longer any distinction. Complete 
conqueror of death, take possession of thy kingdom ; 
whither shall follow thee, by the royal roa4 which thou 
hast traced, ages of worshippers (des siecles d'adora- 
teurs). . . . Far from having been created by his disci- 
ples, Jesus appears in all things superior to his disci- 
ples. They, St. Paul and St. John excepted, were 



MANIFESTATION. 297 

men without talent or genius. . . . Upon the whole, 
the character of Jesus, far from having been embel- 
lished by his biographers, has been belittled by them." 

" Jesus is unique in everything, and nothing can 
compare with him." . . . " He is a man of colos- 
sal dimensions, 4 the Incomparable Man,' . . . the 
Adorable One, who shall preside over the destinies, 
— to whom the universal conscience has decreed the 
title of Son of God." 

" After him there is nothing more to develop and 
fructify." 

" He was the creator of the eternal religion of hu- 
manity. . . . Between Thee and God there will no 
longer be any distinction." 

Renan concludes his Life of Jesus thus : " Whatever 
may be the surprises of the future, Jesus will never be 
surpassed. His worship will grow young without 
ceasing ; his legend will call forth tears without end ; 
his sufferings will melt the noblest hearts ; all ages will 
proclaim that, among the sons of men, there is none 
born greater than Jesus." 

In his later work, Lives of the Apostles, Renan 
sees no reason for changing his former estimates : 
" Paul is not Jesus. How far removed are we from 
thee, dear Master! Where is thy mildness, thy po- 
etry? Thou, to whom a flower did bring pleasure 
and ecstasy, dost thou recognize as thy disciples these 
wranglers, these men furious over their prerogatives, 
and desiring that everything should be held of them ? 
They are men : thou wast a God." 

To these outspoken and extreme opposers of the 
Christian faith may be added a class of strong-minded 



2C)S GOD-MAX. 



- y 



men in France, who have made no professions of ex- 
perimental Christianity, and no pretensions to exact 
theological knowledge, and yet who think, and have 
arrived at correct and often profound conclusions. 

We take, for illustration, certain admissions made 
by Napoleon at St. Helena, as indicating the position 
of this class. The point made will not be essentially 
qualified if forced to confess that the words, as re- 
ported, have received some slight embellishment, for 
they are unquestionably the substance of his confes- 
sion. Speaking of Jesus, he says, — 

fci Everything in Christ astonishes me. His spirit 
overawes me, and his will confounds me. His ideas 
and his sentiments, the truths which he announces, 
his manner of convincing, are not explained either by 
human observation or the nature of things. 

" His birth, and the history of his life ; the profun- 
dity of his doctrine, which grapples the mightiest 
difficulties, and which is of those difficulties the most 
admirable solution ; his gospel, his apparition, his 
empire ; his march across the ages and the realms, — 
everything is for me a prodigy, a mystery insoluble, 
which plunges me into a reverie from which I cannot 
escape ; a mystery which is there before my eyes ; a 
mystery which I can neither deny nor explain. 

u Here I see nothing human. The nearer I ap- 
proach, the more carefully I examine, everything is 
above me, everything remains grand, — of a grandeur 
which overpowers. His religion is a revelation from 
an Intelligence which certainly is not that of man. . . . 

a Superficial minds see a resemblance between 
Christ and the founders of empires, and the gods of 



MANIFESTATION. 299 

other religions. That resemblance does not exist. ... I 
know men ; and I tell you that Jesus Christ is not a 
man." 

Again we merely pause to inquire, What mean this 
talk and these admissions? Are they whimseys, or, 
rather, are they not glimpses of the grandest thought 
which has ever dawned upon human intelligence? 

Passing from France to England, and down to re- 
cent dates, we discover that infidel and sceptical minds 
here as elsewhere, are free to acknowledge, when- 
ever alluding to the subject, that the Being who came 
on earth two thousand years ago was a manifestation 
unparalleled in human history. 

James Martineau, who has said many hard things 
respecting the evangelical views of Jesus, admits, in 
his better moments, that it is " the agency of Christ's 
mind as the expression of God's moral nature and 
providence, and as the realized ideal of beauty and 
excellence, . . . which is the power of God and the 
wisdom of God." 

u Christ is the commissioned prophet," he continues, 
" the merciful redeemer, the inspired teacher, the per- 
fect model, the heavenly guide." 

Mackay, another prophet of the radical and liberal 
school, confesses that " among many pretenders to 
Messiahship, Jesus alone seems to have understood 
the character in which the office had any chance of 
being advantageously administered." 

Mr. W. R. Gregg, another zealous opposer of evan- 
gelical views, makes the following clear and forcible 
admission : " It is difficult, without exhausting super- 
latives, even to unexpressive and wearisome satiety, 



300 GOD-MAN. 

to do justice to our intense love, reverence, and admi- 
ration for the character and teachings of Jesus. We 
regard him, not as the perfection of the intellectual or 
philosophic mind, but as the perfection of the spiritual 
character; as surpassing all men at all times in the 
closeness and depth of his communion with the 
Father. In reading his sayings, we feel that we are 
holding converse with the wisest, purest, noblest Be- 
ing that ever clothed thought in the poor language of 
humanity. In studying his life, we feel that we are 
following the footsteps of the highest ideal yet pre- 
sented to us upon earth." 

Professor Jowett must be acknowledged an able 
representative of the late school of English reviewists, 
and he doubtless gives correct expression to their 
opinions when confessing that " in the words of 
Christ is contained the inner life of mankind, and of 
the church : there, too, the individual beholds, as in a 
glass, the image of a goodness which is not of this 
world." 

We may also allow Miss Cobbe to represent the 
English admirers and disciples of Theodore Parker. 
She says, " Those w 7 ho have regarded him [Jesus] 
from the rationalistic side, have commonly fixed their 
attention on his moral teachings, and have proclaimed 
him the supreme moral reformer of the world. He 
was so, indeed, but he was surely something more. . . . 

" The view, therefore, which seems to be the sole 
fitting one for our estimation of the character of Christ, 
is that which regards him as the great Regenerator of 
humanity. His coming was to the life of humanity 
what regeneration is to the life of the individual. 



MANIFESTATION. 3OI 

This is a broad, plain inference from the universal 
history of our race. The world has changed, and 
that change is historically traceable to Christ." 

In addition to these opponents of the Christian 
faith, there have been in England, as in other coun- 
tries, a class of men whom it is difficult to locate. 
While orthodoxy, for its credit, should not attempt to 
claim them, it should, at the same time, resolutely 
deny the right of her opponents to class them among 
theoretical unbelievers. We must be content to re- 
ceive the testimony of a few only, and these as repre- 
sentative merely. 

In this doubtful relation appears first in importance 
the shadowy spirit of Thomas Carlyle, who is called 
almost everything, and classed almost everywhere. 

He has, however, spoken grand words for Jesus, 
making him " the greatest of heroes," which, with 
Carlyle, means much. " His life," he confesses, " is 
a perfect ideal poem." The " tidings of the most im- 
portant event ever transacted in this world is the Life 
and Death of the Divine Man in Judea, at once the 
symptom and cause of immeasurable changes to all 
people in the world. 

" He walked in Judea eighteen hundred years ago, 
his sphere melody flowing in wild native tones ; took 
captive the ravished souls of men, and, being of a 
truth sphere melody, still flows and sounds, though 
now with thousand-fold accompaniments and rich 
symphonies through all our hearts, and modulates and 
divinely leads them." 

We may add the confession of Lord Byron that " if 
ever man was God, or God man, Jesus Christ was 



302 GOD-MAN. 

both ; " and that of Froude : " The most perfect being 
who ever trod the soil of this planet was called the 
Man of Sorrows;"* and the words which occur in the 
Will of Charles Dickens — words which bind him for- 
ever to Christian hearts : " I commit my soul to the 
mercy of God, through our Lord and Saviour, Jesus 
Christ, and I exhort my dear children humbly to try 
to guide themselves by the teachings of the New Tes- 
tament." f 

* This suggests the language of Thomas Decker: "The 
best of men that ever wore earth about him was a sufferer, 
a meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit, — the first true gen- 
tleman that ever breathed." 

f Scarcely less touching and impressive are his words re- 
lating to Christmas, and embodying, in brief, the life of the 
Saviour: "Hark! the waits are playing, and they break my 
childish sleep. What images do I associate with the Christ- 
mas music, as I see them set forth on the Christmas tree? 
Known before all others, keeping far apart from all the oth- 
ers, they gather round my little bed. An angel, speaking to 
a group of shepherds in a field; some travellers, with eyes 
uplifted, following a star; a baby in a manger; a child in a 
spacious temple, talking with grave men; a solemn figure, 
with a mild and beautiful face, raising a dead girl by the 
hand; again, near a city gate, calling back the son of a 
widow, on his bier, to life; a crowd of people, looking 
through the opened roof of a chamber, where he sits, and 
letting down a sick person, on a bed, with ropes; the same, 
in a tempest, walking on the water to a ship; again, on a 
sea-shore, teaching a great multitude; again, with a child 
upon his knee, and other children around; again, restoring 
sight to the blind, speech to the dumb, hearing to the deaf, 
health to the sick, strength to the lame, knowledge to the 
ignorant; again, dying upon a cross, watched by armed sol- 
diers, a thick darkness coming on, the earth beginning to 
shake, and only one voice heard, — ' Forgive them, for they 
know not what they do ! ' " 



MANIFESTATION. 303 

Without pausing to re-state the question, already 
twice repeated, as to the force of this language, but 
leaving it to be inferred and answered at pleasure, we 
pass at once from English to American scepticism, 
which is as bold as that of any other nationality, but 
possessing far less originality. In fact, its originality 
is reduced* to the minimum. 

If the term early can yet be applied to anything 
distinctively American, we would ask attention, first, 
to the voice of early American deism, represented in 
its different phases by such men as Thomas Paine, 
Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson.* 

Their deism, like the deistic infidelity of Montesquieu, 
Rousseau, Diderot, and Voltaire, in France, and the 
deistic rationalism of Germany commencing in the 
court of Frederick the Great, is traceable, directly and 
indirectly, to English literature, as influenced by the 
writings of Lord Herbert and Thomas Hobbes. 

Thomas Paine, though born in England, and 
schooled a part of his life in France, was present, and 
exerted not a little influence during the struggles of this 
country for independence ; he may therefore be classed 
among the representatives of early American unbelief. 

He was an avowed infidel and scoffer, often indulging 
in such extreme coarseness and bitterness as indi- 
cate almost entire destitution of refinement and cul- 
ture ; yet, in his better moments, he was so impressed 
with the life and character of Jesus, as to disclaim 

* If some one who is qualified could be induced to write 
the ecclesiastical history of America, he would certainly con- 
fer a great favor upon the reading public. Few countries, 
or epochs, are crowded with such intensely interesting ma- 
terial. 



304 GOD-MAN. 

even " the most distant disrespect for his real char- 
acter." 

Speaking of the pre-eminence of Christ's teach- 
ings, he says, " The morality that he preached and 
practised was of the most benevolent kind ; and 
though similar systems of morality had been preached 
by Confucius, and by some of the Greek philosophers, 
many years before, by the Quakers since, and by 
many good men in all ages, it has not been exceeded 
by any." * 

Of the theological opinions of Franklin we know 
much less than of Paine's, yet of his we are not en- 
tirely ignorant. In a letter to President Stiles, of 
Yale College, dated March 9, 1 790, he thus — it must 
be confessed, somewhat cautiously — speaks of Jesus 
of Nazareth : " I think his system of morals and reli- 
gion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever 
saw, or is like to see. Still, I have, with most of the 

* While attempting no palliation for the course pursued 
bv Paine, we ought, perhaps, in justice to say of him, as of 
many others, that his objections arose in no respect from the 
life and character of Jesus, or from a pure Christianity, but 
from Romanism and a corrupt priesthood. The frontispiece 
in the Boston edition of his theological works is suggestive : 
a church in" the background; flocks and grain-fields on either 
side of the road leading to it; a sleek and fat parson, with a 
sheaf under one arm, and a lamb under the other, wending 
his way homeward ; and a lank peasant, sickle in hand, to 
whom, doubtless, belonged the sheaf and lamb, calling after 
the parson, and pointing to pillars of immovable rocks, upon 
which is the inscription, The Age of Reason, They are such 
conceptions and misrepresentations as these; occasioned in 
part by a lifeless church and selfish priesthood, which, while 
they offer no apology for infidelity, must be taken into ac- 
count in explaining its existence and intensity. 



MANIFESTATION. 



305 



present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his 
divinity, though it is a question I do not dogmatize 
upon, having never studied it. I shall know about it 
soon." 

Mr. Jefferson's admissions are characterized by the 
same cautious reserve. He lays special stress upon 
the moral system of Jesus. " Such are the fragments 
remaining," he says, " as to show a master workman, 
and that his system of morality was the most benevo- 
lent and sublime, probably, that has been ever taught, 
and more perfect than those of any of the ancient 
philosophers." * • 

* The letter in which this passage occurs is dated Wash- 
ington, April 9, 1803, and was addressed to Dr. Priestley, in 
review of his Comparative View of Socrates and Jesus. It 
is, doubtless, a very correct expression of the views at that 
time entertained by the more refined class of American de- 
ists. The following is the letter in full : — 

" While on a short visit lately to Monticello, I received 
from you a copy of your Comparative View of Socrates and 
Jesus, and I avail myself of the first moment of leisure, after 
my return, to acknowledge the pleasure I had in the perusal, 
and the desire it excited to see you take up the subject on 
a more extensive scale. In consequence of some conversa- 
tions with Dr. Rush, in the years 1798-99, I had promised 
some day to write him a letter, giving him my view of the 
Christian system. I have reflected often on it since, and 
even sketched the outlines in my own mind. I should first 
take a general view of the moral doctrines of the most re- 
markable of the ancient philosophers, of whose ethics we 
have sufficient information to make an estimate, — say of 
Pythagoras, Epictetus, Socrates, Seneca, Antoninus. I 
should do justice to the branches of morality they have 
treated well, but point out the importance of those in which 
they are deficient. I should then take a view of the deism 
20 



306 GOD-MAN. 

These deists, some of whom, perhaps, at the pres- 
ent time, would better be termed theists,* are certainly 

and ethics of the Jews, and show In what a degraded state 
they were, and the necessity they presented of a reformation. 
I should proceed to a view of the life, character, and doc- 
trines of Jesus, who, sensible of the incorrectness of their 
ideas of the deity, and of morality, endeavored to bring them 
to the principles of a pure deism, and juster notions of the 
attributes of God ; to reform their moral doctrines to the 
standard of reason, justice, and philanthropy, and to incul- 
cate the belief of a future state. 

'" This view would purposely omit the question of his divin- 
ity, and even of his inspiration. To do him justice, it would 
be necessary to remark the disadvantage his doctrines have 
to encounter, not having been committed to writing by him- 
self, but by the most unlettered of men, by memory, long 
after they had heard them from him, when much was for- 
gotten, much misunderstood, and presented in very paradox- 
ical shapes. Yet such are the fragments remaining as to 
show a master workman, and that his system of morality 
was the most benevolent and sublime, probably, that has 
ever been taught, and more perfect than those of any of the 
ancient philosophers. His character and doctrines have re- 
ceived still greater injury from those who pretend to be his 
spiritual disciples, and who have disfigured and sophisticated 
his actions and precepts from views of personal interest, so as 
to induce the unthinking part of mankind to throw off the 
whole system in disgust, and to pass sentence as an impostor 
on the most innocent, the most benevolent, the most elo- 
quent and sublime character that has ever been exhibited to 
man. This is the outline : but I have not the time, and still 
less the information, which the subject needs. It will there- 
fore rest with me in contemplation only." 

* The distinction between the terms deist and theist has 
not always been kept clear. Viret was one of the first to 
employ the word deist. In the middle of the seventeenth 
century, Herbert appropriated it; afterwards, Blount also, to 



MANIFESTATION". 307 

not believers. They were unbelievers ; and yet, like 
Goethe and Carlyle, they were often amazed at many 
of the religious problems surrounding them, and 
would be still more so, did they live in present times. 

They were often shocked, and justly so, by the con- 
duct and character of some of Christ's nominal rep- 
resentatives ; and yet they were often found standing 
in silent contemplation before his character, regarding 
it as a fitter object for profoundest meditation than for 
ordinary conversation.* They were seekers after truth, 
and waiters ; waiting, perhaps, too long. 

Passing over the intervening period, we come down 
to the rise and development of American Unitarianism. 

We must confess, at the outset, that we have been 
deeply impressed with the character of the testimo- 
nies for a divine Christ, which everywhere appear in 
the writings of the father and founder of Unitarianism 
in this country, William Ellery Charming, j* 

distinguish themselves from atheists ; but Herbert also calls 
himself theist. The distinction that has been attempted by 
most writers is, that theism opposes religious error in gen- 
eral, and deism implies a position antagonistic to revealed 
religion. 

* The reply of Mr. Emerson to the question, Why did you 
not treat the character of Jesus, instead of Swedenborg, to 
illustrate the religious idea in your Representative Men ? is 
in this connection suggestive: "That character of -Jesus 
requires a strong constitution to handle." 

f Dr. .Channing, after the year 1815, maybe regarded as 
nominally a Unitarian, and as standing at the head of the 
denomination in this country. Yet he never dogmatically 
asserted the mere humanity of Jesus Christ. 

As late as 1841, he said, "I am little of a Unitarian, have 
little sympathy with the system of Priestley and Belsham, 



308 GOD-MAN. 

The most rigid orthodox believers, while listening 
to some of his expressions respecting sublime Chris- 
tian truths, — and perhaps we ought not to hesitate to 
add also, respecting Christian faith, — will almost feel, 
not the hand of an opponent raised against them, but 
of a brother, clasped within their own. The following 
are a few among many such expressions : — 

" I ask you whether the character of Jesus be not 
the most extraordinary in history, and wholly inexpli- 
cable on human principles. He talks of his glories 
as one to whom they were familiar, and of his inti- 
macy and oneness with God, as simply as a child 
speaks of his connection with his parents. I main- 
tain that this is a character wholly remote from human 
conception. I contemplate it with a veneration sec- 
ond only to the profound awe with which I look up to 
God. It was a real character. It belongs to and it 
manifests the beloved Son of God." u Jesus is not a 
fiction. He is still the Son of God, and the Saviour 
of the world. 

tw I confess, when I can escape the deadening power 
of habit, and can receive the full import of such pas- 
sages as the following : ' Come unto me, all ye that 
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest ; ' 
' I am come to seek and to save that which is lost ; ' 
' He that confesseth me before men, him will I 
confess before my Father in heaven ; ' ' Whosoever 
shall be ashamed of me before men, of him shall the 
Son of man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory 
of the Father, with the holy angels ; ' 'In my Father's 

and stand aloof from all but those who strive and pray for 
clearer light." 



MANIFESTATION. 309 

house are many mansions ; I go to prepare a place for 
you ; ' — I say, when I can succeed in realizing the 
import of such passages, I feel myself listening to a 
being such as never before and never since spoke in 
human language ; I am awed by the consciousness of 
greatness which these simple words express ; and, 
when I connect this greatness with the proofs of 
Christ's miracles. I am compelled to exclaim, with the 
centurion, 4 Truly this was the Son of God.' 

" Here I pause ; and indeed I know not what can 
be added to heighten the wonder, reverence, and love 
which are due to Jesus. When I consider him, not 
only as possessed with the consciousness of an unex- 
ampled and unbounded majesty, but as recognizing a 
kindred nature in human beings, and living and dying 
to raise them to a participation of his divine glories, — 
and when I see him, under these views, allying him- 
self to men by the tenderest ties, embracing them with 
a spirit of humanity which no insult, injury, or pain 
could for a moment repel or overpower, — I am filled 
with wonder, as well as reverence and love. I feel 
that this character is not of human invention ; that it 
was not assumed through fraud, or struck out by en- 
thusiasm ; for it is infinitely above their reach. 

" When I add this character of Jesus to the other 
evidences of his religion, it gives to what before 
seemed so strong a new and a vast accession of 
strength. I feel as if I could not be deceived. The 
Gospels must be true. They were drawn from a liv- 
ing original ; they were founded on reality. The 
character of Jesus is not a fiction ; he was what he 
claimed to be, and what his followers attested. 



3IO GOD-MAN. 

" Nor is this all. Jesus not only was, he is still, 
the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. He exists 
now ; he has entered that heaven to which he always 
looked forward on earth. There he lives and reigns. 
With a clear, calm faith, I see him in that state of 
glory ; and I confidently expect, at no distant period, 
to see him face to face." 

Mr. Parker stands in such historic connection with 
Dr. Channing, that he is entitled, perhaps, to the next 
place on the list, though other considerations would 
quickly classify him elsewhere. Still some of his 
words are lofty and inspiring. Discoursing upon 
Jesus, he says, " He pours out a doctrine as beau- 
tiful as the light, sublime as heaven, and true as God. 
The philosophers, the poets, the prophets, the Rabbis, 
— he rises above them all. Yet Nazareth was no 
Athens, where philosophy breathed in the circumam- 
bient air ; it had neither porch nor lyceum ; not even 
a school of the prophets. There is God in the heart 
of this youth." 

" That mightiest heart that ever beat, stirred by the 
Spirit of God, how it wrought in his bosom ! What 
words of rebuke, of comfort, counsel, admonition, 
promise, hope, did he pour out ! words that stir the 
soul as summer dews call up the faint and sickly grass. 
What profound instruction in his proverbs and dis- 
courses ! what wisdom in his homely sayings, so rich 
with Jewish life ! what deep divinity of soul in his 
prayers, his action, sympathy, resignation ! 

" Try him as we try other teachers. They deliver 
their word ; find a few waiting for the consolation, 
who accept the new tidings, follow the new method, 



MANIFESTATION. 3 1 1 

and soon go beyond their teacher, though ler s mighty 
minds than he. Such is the case with each founder of 
a school of philosophy, each sect in religion. Though 
humble men, we see what Socrates and Luther never 
saw. But eighteen centuries have passed since the 
tide of humanity rose so high in Jesus; what man, 
what sect, w T hat church, has mastered his thought, 
comprehended his method, and so fully applied it to 
life? Let the world answer in its cry of anguish. . . . 

u To our apprehension, Jesus w T as much greater than 
the evangelists represent him. We would not measure 
him by the conceptions formed by Jewish or heathen 
converts, but by the long stream of light he shed on 
the first three centuries after his death, and through 
them on all time since. 

" Measure Je^us by the shadow he has cast into the 
world? No, by the light he has shed upon it. Shall 
we be told such a man never lived? the whole story 
is a lie? Suppose that Plato and New r ton never 
lived. But who did their works, and thought their 
thought? It takes a Newton to forge a Newton. 
What man could have fabricated a Jesus? None but 
a Jesus." 

Mr. Parker is an outgrowth of Unitarian ism ; he 
stands at the head of one of the directions which that 
faith must always take. The opposite tendency must 
inevitably point towards evangelical belief. The creed 
that occupies the intermediate ground must suffer slow 
but sure disintegration, and fall into final neglect. 

We pass, for the present, the admissions which have 
been made by the rationalistic school of Unitarianism, 
quoting first from a few only, of the many able and 



3 1 2 GOD-MAN. 

excellent living representatives of which the conserva- 
tive wing can be justly proud. 

"Jesus," says Dr. Dewey, " is not an unmeaning 
figure in history ; it is not one that can any way be 
passed by. On the contrary, in the entire range of all 
recorded knowledge of men, he is the most conspic- 
uous personage ; nay, he stands alone ; he is taken 
up out of the range of all comparison ; indeed, his 
isolation, the unapproachable solitariness of his gran- 
deur, as men have conceived of it, has been greater 
than the wise and thoughtful may have wished ; but 
so it is. Such is the ideal ; so it exists and reigns, and 
has reigned for many ages." 

Not unlike this admission is that of Dr. Hedge : 
" Nowhere but in Jesus has our nature reached so 
ostensibly its true perfection ; and but for him we 
had not known what that nature is in its possibility 
and its calling, its highest and deepest capacity and 
strength." 

" Through his sole mediation," says President 
Walker, — " that is to say, by his teachings and suffer- 
ings, by his life and death, — he has broken down for- 
ever the legal and ritual impediments which were 
thought to separate man from his Maker, and thus 
opened a way of access to the Father, ' once for all.' 
By a new and far more sublime revelation of grace, 
and truth, and spiritual freedom, he has opened to the 
whole world a door of access to the mercy-seat, and 
left it open ; it is a door which no man, or body of 
men, can shut." 

" Above all, the religious thought of the present age 
is modified by the voice of that Teacher," says Presi- 



MANIFESTATION. 313 

dent Hill, u who stands alone and unapproachable in 
the clearness of his vision of God ; unlike all other 
teachers in the fulness and certainty of his knowl- 
edge." 

" Whether we can fix the exact point of his eleva- 
tion or not," says Dr. Eliot, " and however ignorant 
we may be of his essential nature, as indeed we are 
ignorant of our own, we have abundant evidence from 
his own words and demeanor, that he occupied an 
exceptional place, both in relation to God and man, to 
do a work peculiar to himself for the glory of God 
and for the salvation of the world." 

Says Dr. Peabody, " You cannot, by any possibil- 
ity, bring Jesus down to the level of ordinary human- 
ity, into line with the men of his generation, or even 
into line with the great men of all times. His is the 
only character in history which has no secular parallel, 
which looks as great in the nineteenth century as in 
the first. His, too, was the most potent spirit that 
ever tenanted a human body. His teachings underlie 
all our modern civilization, all progress, all philan- 
thropy ; nor is there a maxim in the improved philos- 
ophy of life, of society, of commerce, of government, 
which has not emanated from his gospel, and which 
may not be retranslated, and for the better, into the 
very words that fell from his lips. 

u He still appears, not one of a class, but a class 
by himself; not unequalled, but unapproached ; not 
brightest among kindred luminaries, but sole sun, in 
whose rays the stars turn pale. . . . His heavenly 
birth-song, power, and transfiguration, seem to me 
only an exterior manifestation, belonging of right 



3T4 GOD-MAN. 

to a spirit like his. ... It was as natural that he 
should rise from the sepulchre as that we should sleep 
in it." 

Dr. Peabody's references to Christ in connection 
with death in the household are, if possible, still more 
beautiful and impressive. " Only the family with 
which Christ is a welcome guest and a familiar friend 
can feel that its union is beyond the touch of death. 
Only as we are one in him can we be assured that 
we are one forever. Only he who gave Lazarus to 
his sisters can give us to one another, where there 
shall be no death and no parting." 

"If there be one folly greater than another," says 
Dr. Bellows, " it is, in our day, the attempt to pro- 
nounce the gospel outworn, Christ a mere name 
among other great names, Christianity a superstition, 
and the church a prison for the intellect and a strait 
jacket for the will. 

"In Jesus Christ there broke into the world* a 
mighty and shaping influence, a holy will, a spiritual 
sovereignty, an illuminating, warming, inspiring prin- 
ciple of mingled thought, affection, and volition, which 
was, among the other moral and spiritual influences at 
work upon the world of feeling and opinion, what the 
mighty Gulf Stream is among the other currents of the 
ocean — changing the temperature of the most distant 
seas, ameliorating the climates of far-off boreal shores, 
and modifying the navigation and the commerce of the 
globe. . . . 

" Amid the good principalities and powers that 
are helping us on, and above them all, is the head 
of all principality and power, Christ and Christianity, 



MANIFESTATION. 3 1 5 

a principality and power the immeasurable signifi- 
cance and value of which cannot be exaggerated, and 
which it becomes us most gratefully and humbly to 
adore and glorify." 

Dr. Sears' s expressions of faith are essentially the 
same as those of Dr. Bellows. " As a teacher," he 
says of Jesus, " he dwelt upon this earth, drew dis- 
ciples around him, lived out his life in the flesh, and 
thus embodied the system of gospel truth in his words 
and actions. The record of this constitutes what we. 
call historical Christianity. It w T as the golden future 
of the old patriarchs and prophets, to which they ever 
looked forward ; it is the golden past of the modern 
times, to which we ever turn back. There the heavens 
bent and kissed the plains ; there the Eternal Word 
came down and touched the earth, and clothed itself 
in flesh and in human language, and thence it darts its 
radiances, backward and forward, through the ages. 
But the whole work which Christ did on the earth 
was preparatory to another, a higher and more interior 
work, which he was to accomplish afterwards. He 
went away from the earth that he might come nearer 
to it. He took up into his comprehensive experience 
all the weaknesses and woes of humanity, and then 
left them behind, and ascended as the glorified, — the 
fulness of the Godhead bodily, the Mediator, out of 
whom God might pass over into humanity, and sweep 
it through, and create a new consciousness within it." 

James Freeman Clarke closes the list of those be- 
longing to this wing of Unitarianism.* " Christ," he 

* We would not convey the impression that Mr. Clarke be- 
longs exclusively to this or any other wing of Unitarianism. 



316 GOD-MAN. 

says, " was something more than mere man, — some- 
thing more than Moses and Elijah, — something more 
than a man of great religious genius. The peculiarity 
of Christ was, that he was chosen by God's wisdom, 
and prepared by God's providence, to be the typical 
man of the race, — the God-man in whom the divine 
spirit and human soul become one in a perfect union. 
He was, perhaps, placed, by an exceptional birth, 
where the first Adam stood, rescued from inherited 
depravity, made in the image of God. Then the 
spirit was given him without measure. . . . 

" The word of God dwelt in him, and did not 
merely come to him as a transient influence for a 
special purpose. The spirit in Christ was one with 
God. 

u Is it any wonder, then, that men should have called 
Jesus God? that they should call him so still? In 
him truly ' dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily ; ' 
and this indwelling spirit expressed itself in what he 
said and what he did. When Jesus speaks, it is as if 
God speaks. When Jesus does anything, it is as if 
we saw God do it. It becomes to us an expression 
of the divine character. When Jesus says to the sin- 
ner, Go and sin no more, we see in this a manifesta- 
tion not merely of his own compassion, but of God's 
forgiving love. . . . He is the image of the invis- 
ible God — the first-born of the whole creation." 

The transition from the conservative to the better 
side of the opposite wing of Unitarianism, or Theistic 
Radicalism, is not so difficult as many imagine ; it is 
to this better side we now allude, reserving extreme 
views for another section. 



MANIFESTATION. 3 I 7 

The writers are so many and so scattered, found, 
indeed, all the way between the right wing and the 
baldest infidelity, and their statements are so often 
apparently self-contradictory, that we shall be justified 
in merely and briefly calling attention to detached ex- 
pressions which everywhere appear in radical publica- 
tions, and from these deduce criticisms, and form our 
estimates. 

Representative expressions are the following : — 

" There never was a greater than Jesus," " he still 
presides over the destinies of the world," "the creator 
of the eternal religion of humanity," " his transcendent 
personality," "inspired originality of Jesus," "match- 
less penetration of genius," u a man of unprecedented 
originality and power of soul," "the highest historical 
teacher, grand exemplar of our race," " ideal of per- 
fection," "the first of spiritual heroes," "the most 
royal soul of the race," " the best and truest symbol 
of heavenly wisdom," " a man so great as to touch the 
heavens," " a soul so pure as to be an organ of the 
Spirit of the Whole," "greater than his biographers 
have been able to make him," " without equal, and 
his glory will be revealed forever." "Jesus is the best 
embodiment of spiritualism, and the richest Judean 
outgrowth of the spiritual idea." * 

Now, granting all that the most radical opponents 
in the rationalistic school have said respecting the mis- 
takes, interpolations, and exaggerations of the gospel 
records, even after having subjected them to the most 
rigid criticism, and also putting comparatively moder- 

* This concluding quotation is the confession of modern 
medium spiritualism. 



318 GOD-MAN. 

ate estimates upon the "admissions, direct and implied, 
in the above expressions, can the conclusion be avoided, 
that this language is either the product of a sentimen- 
talism which is a reproach to the one possessing it, or 
else that it involves the confession that he who came 
into this world at the commencement of the Christian 
era was the most august personage of history, far tran- 
scending all human position and prestige. 

A point is now reached in the investigation and 
argument where a pause must be made.* 

We may first, however, avail ourselves of the ad- 
vantage the position affords of glancing over the 
broad field through which we have passed. We set 
out with the distinct purpose of ascertaining present 
estimates respecting Jesus, based upon modern admis- 
sions other than those acknowledged to be evangelical. 
We have gathered testimonies from Germany, France, 
England, and America, and from all classes. 

The object, it should be borne in mind, has not been, 
in these citations, to place the authors in false attitudes, 
or to show how evangelical they are, or in any way to 

* Enough has been said, doubtless, to accomplish the pur- 
pose without longer detaining the reader with a review of 
American opinions, though there are a large number in this 
country as elsewhere belonging to the non-theoiogical class, 
whose views form a distinct type. There are men who have 
risen to secular and professional distinction, who are of doubt- 
ful religious faith, classed, of course, by Liberals, as of their 
own number, whose words, nevertheless, when reference has 
been made to the subject, have been uniformly spoken in the 
interest and highest praise of the Lord Christ. Patrick Hen- 
ry, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Rufus Choate may be 
taken as representatives. 



MANIFESTATION. 319 

array them upon the side of orthodoxy. We frankly 
confess that in many instances they are positively un- 
evangelical, and much of the language they elsewhere 
employ appears in direct contradiction to truth and 
to the sentiments just quoted. 

We may also add that while orthodoxy would gladly 
welcome many of these men to its ranks, if it could con- 
sistently do so, still (and this is spoken in all kindness), 
the Christian faith is not, and never has been, in press- 
ing straits for the mere prestige of great names, and 
has never been driven to the shift of making up for lack 
of numbers by resorting to sweeping and groundless 
assertions and presumptions. We are sure opponents 
will not censure, but commend, these statements. 

The exact statement of the case is this : Many of these 
writers from whom we have quoted are acknowledged 
to be profound scholars and original thinkers ; they have 
studied with some degree of critical attention the life 
and character of Jesus, and upon strictly natural 
grounds, without the aid of Christian consciousness, 
have pronounced their decision, and in doing so have; 
placed Jesus of the Gospels far above all others, mak- 
ing him the only religious character of all history able 
to respond to the world's everlasting search and aspi- 
ration. No other one, according to these admissions, 
has had such universal u quantity and quality of cer- 
tificate." No other has had such choirs, composed of 
the loftiest intellects and mightiest kings, to chant his 
praises. There has been no other whose cathedral is 
acknowledged to be the whole world, " and whose 
anthem is as the voice of many waters." This array 
of opinions indicates, too, that no other being has been 



320 GOD-MAN. 

thus obtrusive, ever standing in the way of all who refuse 
to recognize his exalted claim ; whichever way men 
have turned in other investigations, whether in the 
fields of history, religion, human culture, or general 
civilization, and for whatever purpose the investigations 
have been prosecuted, friendly or otherwise, Christ has 
everywhere confronted them with his strange presence. 

Men have said, u Jesus is dead and buried ; let him 
alone." But it has not availed ; he has risen hourly from 
the dead, and pervaded men's thoughts in spite of all 
their objecting and resolving. He is the ever-recurring 
enigma to be solved, the hard problem to be wrought 
out and demonstrated. 

Theorists have said to him, " Thou, who hast killed 
the old religions, thou who hast divided history in 
twain, and begun a new order of ages, and hast 
deeply affected all human interests, — who art thou? 
Give us more proofs of thy rights over us than Gos- 
pels and their fruits in the world afford." Like Herod, 
men long to see some miracle done by him. But he 
keeps a dead silence, only bidding them forsake their 
sins. 

They raise this and that objection ; they pare down 
the gospel, they lop off myths ; but still there he stands, 
to be accounted for ; and without taking time to fully 
investigate the evidences and solve the problem, these 
men of science and literature have been silenced, filled 
with amazement, have spoken a single word or two, 
and then have engaged in other fields of speculation. 

Now, pressing these admissions, coming from such a 
great variety of sources, to their logical issue, and hold- 
ing in mind these other considerations ; keeping in view 



MANIFESTATION. 3 2 I 

also the unfavorable circumstances of family and na- 
tion among which Jesus appeared; such, indeed, that 
his strange life and character must have been origi- 
nated and sustained in spite of them, — considering all 
these things, does not this array of opinions necessi- 
tate a preternatural and divine presence and force as 
the only possible ground of explanation ? What ! gain 
such applause, nay, adoration, wrung from such multi- 
tudes of unwilling hearts, and still be only Joseph's son? 

Were it not for departing from the immediate con- 
nection, we might advance another step, and insist 
upon something more explicit from these writers who 
have admitted so much. Is it not incumbent upon 
them, especially upon those who are professed religious 
teachers, to set forth more explicitly what they really 
mean ? They do not hesitate to be definite, positive, 
and even dogmatic elsewhere ; why not meet these 
involved questions more squarely, instead of saying 
much, and then smothering the much that remains un- 
der ominous silence? 

Nay, when sceptics agree with believers in their tes- 
timony and admissions ; when converted heathen, of 
every age and nation, rise up to call him blessed ; when 
fifty generations of men, on the broadest and brightest 
field of human culture, have given him their entire hom- 
age, or else have emphasized and re-echoed the words 
of the Roman governor, " We find in him no fault at 
all," — is it not evidence conclusive that the simple, 
unbiassed, and irresistible impression has somehow 
forced itself upon human conviction, that Jesus was 
not the son of man — unless he was also the Son of 
God? 

21 



VII. 

CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS. 



ESTIMATES based upon universal Christian con- 
sciousness or belief next claim attention. They 
are not so frequently introduced into the general argu- 
ment as other considerations ; still they appear no less 
important. The fact and distinctive nature of this 
consciousness cannot, indeed, be overlooked in this dis- 
cussion, for they lie directly across our pathway. Its 
character, whatever it be, must modify all estimates. 

There are certain principles, universally conceded, 
which furnish analogies and lift the subject, in a meas- 
ure, above seeming obscurity. 

Conditions and qualifications, for illustration, are 
found involving every namable object of perception or 
conception ; why may not this also be true respecting 
spiritual discernment and insight? 

No one, we trust, will be inclined to question the 
accuracy of Andrew Fuller's statement that divine 
subjects u exhibit a beauty and a life utterly incom- 
prehensible to an unholy mind." 

" Our eyes are holden," says Emerson, " that we 

322 



MANIFESTATION. 323 

cannot see things that stare us in the face, until the 
time arrives when the mind is ripened ; then we be- 
hold them, and the time when we saw them not is 
like a dream." 

The same principle is embodied in the maxim, " He 
whose eyes are forever on the dust cannot see the stars." 

" To many minds," says Plato, " there must come a 
moral improvement before they can receive any intel- 
lectual enlightenment." ♦ 

Why may not Jesus therefore be correct when say- 
ing that men must come to him before they can under- 
stand him ? That is, one must belong to the brother- 
hood of any order before he can understand the grip 
and password ; the countersign is given to a friend, 
not an enemy. One must have eyesight before he can 
pronounce upon colors. It was not flesh and blood 
that revealed a certain truth unto Simon Peter.* There 
are some things, all admit which can never be ap- 
proached or comprehended until men have passed 
through an experience. f 

Can one while in the valley do well in measuring 
the surrounding mountains with his pocket tape meas- 

* John xvi. 17. 

f The implied necessity of a change in character in order 
to fully apprehend the true, beautiful, and good, is seen in all 
pantheistic and philosophical writers. That this character 
may be attained, they speak of a time when the soul must 
4t bestir itself and struggle as if in the throes of birth," that 
it must " turn in loathing from the pleasures of sense," have 
"irrepressible longings " for what is pure, pass through, a 
" crisis of internal life," come into " a noble and perfect man- 
hood," that it may " feel around it the fresh breath of the open 
sky, and over it the clear smile of heaven." 



324 GOD-MAN. 

ure? A man entirely destitute of musical taste says, 
" I am now to appreciate and pronounce upon the sub- 
lime symphonies of Beethoven." You reply, and cor- 
rectly, " Impossible ! " 

A zealous- objector once said to John Newton, " I 
have carefully examined the New Testament, and can 
find there no proof of the Trinity." 

" Do you know what happened to me last night?" 
replied Newton. 

"Well, what?" 

" When going to my bedroom I wondered why I 
could not light my lamp ; but upon examination I 
found I had been attempting to do so with the extin- 
guisher on." * 

* The thought is well expressed in the Marble Faun. 
" Christian faith is a grand cathedral, with divinely-pictured 
windows. Standing without, you can see no glory, nor can 
possibly imagine any; standing within, every ray of light re- 
veals a harmony of unspeakable splendors." 

Pascal carries the thought one step farther, calling attention 
to a condition. " Divine truths," he says, "reach the spirit 
through the heart. We must love divine things in order to 
know them. Christianity reveals herself to those only who 
possess a sincere longing to know her." 

Much like this of Pascal is the statement of M. Athanase 
Coquerel. "We find in Christ the centre of religion, and it 
is only in following his steps that we find the real truth that 
brings us nearer and nearer to God." 

Says Dr. Congreve, the priest of English Comteists, "The 
more truly \ r ou serve Christ, and the more thoroughly you 
mould yourself into his image, the more keen will be your 
sympathy and admiration." 

" He who would see Christ transfigured," says some writer 



MANIFESTATION. 325 

« 

The point in the illustration, and indeed the entire 
principle upon these general grounds, are too apparent 
to justify further elucidation or statement. What has 
now been said seeks merely to gain an admission of 
the possibility of a distinct faculty, or a quickened 
power of soul which may be termed Christian or 
Christ consciousness, and we presume that the point 
sought will be granted. 

Those who place any reliance upon the accuracy of 
New Testament statements respecting this and kindred 
subjects will still find abundant evidence of the possi- 
bility, and also direct statements as to the actual exist- 
ence, of this spiritual insight.* 

whose name we. have forgotten, "must climb the hill; below 
are crowds, demoniacs, and faithless disciples." 

"The Christian religion can be held in highest esteem," as 
M. Guizot correctly remarks, "by those only who are best 
acquainted with it." 

* "At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O 
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these 
things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them 
unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy 
sight. All things are delivered unto me of my Father; and 
no man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth 
any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever 
the Son will reveal him." Matt. xi. 25-27. 

"But I have greater witness than that of John: for the 
works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same 
works that I do^ bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent 
me. And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne 
witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, 
nor seen his shape. And ye have not his word abiding in 
you : for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not." John v. 

36-38. 

"But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the 



326 GOD-MAN. 

In addition to this. Christian experience renders a 
positive and overwhelming verdict and indorsement. 

sheep. To him the porter openeth ; and the sheep hear his 
voice : and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth 
them out. I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and 
am known of mine." John x. 2, 3, 14. 

''But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the 
hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our 
glory ; which none of the princes of this world knew : for had 
they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glo- 
ry. But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which 
God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath 
revealed them unto us by his Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth 
all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man 
knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is 
in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the 
Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the 
world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know 
the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things 
also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teach- 
eth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth ; comparing spir- 
itual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth 
not the things of the Spirit of God : for they are foolishness 
unto him : neither can he know them, because they are spir- 
itually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, 
3 T et he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known 
the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have 
the mind of Christ." 1 Cor. ii. 7-16. 

''Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man, speak- 
ing bj' the Spirit of God, calleth Jesus accursed; and that no 
man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." 
1 Cor. xii. 3. 

" We have an altar whereof they cannot eat which serve 
the tabernacle." Heb. xiii. 10. 

Other confirmatory passages are Psalms xxv. 9, cxix. 18; 
John xiv. 22 ; Ephesians ii. 8. 



MANIFESTATION. ■ 327 

The subject, as referred to this class of testimony, may 
be stated thus: Some of the most intelligent men of 
Christendom have confessed that Jesus was to them, 
prior to a given date, external. They read with ad- 
miration the wonderful deeds of his life, they discov- 
ered marvellous beauties in his character, and spoke 
grand words in his praise ; but afterwards, in addition 
to this intellectual admiration, and by means of what 
seemed to be an experience based upon a new faculty, 
Jesus remained to themjio longer merely external and 
objective, but he penetrated the heart; there resulted 
Christian or Christ consciousness ; a something natu- 
rally distinct from, but added to the human soul ; at 
least so it appears to Christian faith. 

It is worthy of note also that this Christian con- 
sciousness affords, according to the testimony of 
nearly every soul born into the kingdom of God, not 
only a clear recognition of the deity of Christ, but 
likewise a firm faith in all the great doctrines in any 
way related to him. The incarnation, for illustration, 
is found to give support to personal holiness, and is 
fully recognized as the key to all human history, only 
as seen by the spiritual eye. 

This faculty is also discovered to be the agency, and 
the sole agency, which can transfer the sacrifice of 
Christ in its grandeur, and possibly in its effectiveness, 
to the consciousness of the believer. 

Sacrificial atonement likewise, in its most majestic 
bearing, is confessed to be absolutely above the ap- 
prehension of the intellect, however purified ; its vital 
comprehension and significance belong exclusively to 
those quickened and added intuitions and affections of 



328 GOD-MAN. 

the regenerated soul. Perhaps, therefore, Lange is 
right in saying that " no man was ever truly redeemed 
who did not, by repentance, sympathetically receive 
in his own bosom Christ's atoning suffering as the 
verdict." 

In addition to this, it may be stated, upon the ground 
of testimony and observation, that the whole work of 
gospel redemption is accepted or rejected in propor- 
tion as the deity of Christ is accepted or rejected ; and 
this, in its true essence, is embraced if one is in posses- 
sion of Christian consciousness ; otherwise it is held in 
suspense, or ignored. If the attitude be one of sus- 
pense, it is heart-doubt, no faith rather than anti-faith — 
a position which must result, sooner or later, in belief 
or denial, according as the life is one of purity and 
seeking, or of sin and frivolity. 

No one, we presume, will question the additional 
statement, that the better men are understood, the deep- 
er will become the conviction that the divinity of Christ 
and the involved doctrines are set aside by those only 
who are either resolved upon indulging for a time 
in practices which are not in accordance with our 
Lord's precepts, or by those who are not acquainted 
with the true spirit of the gospel. Moral obliquity or 
mental limitations are the two comprehensive occa- 
sions of errors of judgment respecting divine truth.* 

* There is not a little testimony at hand which goes to 
show that in civilized lands it is obliquity quite as often as 
ignorance which so seriously affects and damages our the- 
ology. " As are the inclinations," says Goethe, " so are the 
opinions." " It is the heart," says Neander, " which makes 
the theologian." " The answers," says Julius Mailer, " which 



MANIFESTATION. 3 3D, 

Here, then, is a faculty dependent for its exercise upon 
quickened intelligence and purity of heart ; an intelli- 
gence that is not of this world, and a purity which 
God provides and bestows upon hearts willing and 
waiting to receive it. 

As might be expected, this new faculty — Christian 
consciousness — differs from God-consciousness, The 
one, as we have seen, is universal ; the other is limited, 
and depends upon direct revelation and a new personal 
experience. It differs likewise from the felt necessity 
and intense longing for a Mediator, which is also a 
datum of essential and universal theology. It is rath- 
er an after-work, the felt apprehension of Christ ; nay, 
the full and ripened consciousness of his personal pres- 
ence in the heart. 

Essential or natural Christology, which has its sway 
before conversion, — better before regeneration, — fur- 
nishes notions respecting Christ, head-thoughts ; it also 
allows of affections and admiration for the personal 
excellence of the man Jesus. 

Revealed Christology and Christian consciousness, 
which are the soul's informers after regeneration, fur- 
Truth gives to a man depend very much upon the questions 
which he puts to Truth." * 

" Our system of thought," says Fichte, " is often only the 
history of our heart; " and again, "Men do not will accord- 
ing to their reason, but reason according to their will." 

Shakespeare is certainly unquestioned authority upon mat- 
ters of human nature : — 

"For when we in our viciousness grow hard, 
O misery on't! the wise gods seal our eyes; 

. . . make us 
Adore our errors, laugh at us while we strut 
To our confusion." 



330 GOD-MAN. 

nish heart-thoughts respecting Christ ; it also inspires 
affection for the deity of Christ, which hitherto had 
been concealed under the person of the Nazarene. 

Essential Christology reaches its maximum in some 
of the better representative thinkers of the ancient 
-world, and in modern times in the better types of 
Unitarianism. The intellect in these instances, purified 
and fully aglow, receiving sympathy from other facul- 
ties and powers of one's being, including the normal 
action of the heart, is able to utter expressions which 
can be distinguished from true Christian sentiment and 
experience only with closest attention. But the Chris- 
tology of a regenerated soul dares, in its best, really in 
its normal moments, to think of Christ as none other 
than God. 

That heart, and we may add that heart only, which 
has been enlightened by Christian consciousness, is able 
to feel continually palpitating beneath the thin vesture 
of the external Jesus the true, the beautiful, the good, 
the absolute and eternal, even all the fulness and glory 
of God, and God himself, in no. fanciful sense, but 
actually. Nay, the initiated man knows, in his secret, 
sacred, and inmost soul, that Christ and God are one.* 

* The confession of Henry More furnishes a good illustra- 
tion of this point. " For the light within me — that is, my 
reason and conscience — does assure me that the ancient and 
apostolic faith, according to the historical meaning thereof, 
and in the literal sense of the creed, is solid and true." 

Mr. Hepworth's sincerity is called in question by many, 
but we do not see how his confession could be stated more 
satisfactorily. "I cannot resist the feeling — it has grown 
partly out of the way in which I read the Bible, and partly 
out of my own religious consciousness — that Christ's life 
and God's life are inextricably interwoven and interlaced. " 



MANIFESTATION. 33 1 

Other characteristics of Christ-consciousness are of 
such a nature, and afford so great delight to the be- 
liever, as to demand at least recognition, though not 
full discussion. 

It attains its conclusions, for illustration, intuitively 
rather than by processes of reasoning. The soul is 
enabled to leap as by one earnest bound to those grand 
results and conceptions which lie entirely and forever 
beyond the reach of rule and method. 

Yet it does not ignore known truth and fact, when- 
ever or wherever met, but makes u a short-hand regis- 
tration" of them, and then, without delay or exhaus- 
tion, settles, satisfactorily "to itself, the most momentous 
questions that have been propounded to human hearts. 
This spiritual perception is always attended by the 
purest and most lofty scope of intelligence ; its freest 
exercise cannot take place, indeed, save while the man 
is fully within the doors of the royal kingdom of divine 
knowledge and truth.* 

* We should greatly misrepresent our position did we seem, 
in what has previously been said, to introduce a plea for 
mental ignorance. In other connections we would urge the 
importance of distinctive mental culture and general informa- 
tion with all the force and warmth of unqualified argument; 
but in its place, this of which we now speak demands no less 
emphasis or exclusive representation. To know, is no less 
the motto of the believer than the sceptic; to attain belief is, 
perhaps, no less the motto of the honest sceptic than the 
believer. There is a difference between them ; but the differ- 
ence is one of method and emphasis. " Know that you may 
believe," is the creed of the one. " Believe that you may 
know," is that of the other. To belief, in the Christian 
scheme, all knowledge, sooner or later, is to be added. 



332 GOD-MAN. 

This consciousness is likewise accompanied by a 
feeling of relief from guilt. The vision of Christ 
which it affords inspires confidence, and the contact 
with Christ which it imparts restores to the conscious- 
ness the innocence of childhood. The relation of 
sacrificial atonement and pardon, is seen at a glance 
— rather, felt as a fact. Even should the man, but one 
mo?nent before the consciousness is bestowed, actually 
see the " serpent twining round his limbs, and feel 
the serpent's poison beating in his blood, and see over 
all his beauty and glory the serpent-defiling trail," the 
next moment he may feel the serpent yield its hold, 
and see it fall at his feet helpless and dead, and per- 
ceive also the poison gone from his blood, and the 
beauty and glory of his manhood more than restored. 

There is likewise afforded the most intimate near- 
ness to the Deity. No longer is Christ felt to be a 
Jew, but he is of the regenerated man's own national- 
ity and family. The nearness is so wonderful that it 
almost amounts to oneness. " To both Christ and 
himself," as Luther expresses it, " possessions, hap, 
mishap, and all things become common. What Christ 
has, is the believing soul's ; what the soul has, becomes 
Christ's. If Christ has all possessions and blessedness, 
they become the soul's. If the soul has all vice and 
sin on it, they become Christ's." 

That strange language of the apostle Paul, who 
was the most clear-headed of all the disciples, in 
which he came near confounding his own person- 
ality with that of Christ, is familiar to all : " I am 
crucified with Christ ; nevertheless, I. live ; yet not 
I, but Christ liveth in me ; and the life which I now 



MANIFESTATION. 333 

live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of 
God." * 

And when a late convert to belief in the deity of 
Christ gives the following expression to his Christian 
consciousness, " I feel that God has given to me Jesus 
Christ, who will lead me up to the Father, and I can 
stand by the side of the Lord, and he will stand by my 
side, and will put his hand around my waist, and walk 
with me, and will put' his arm through mine, and I 
shall feel the genial touch of God himself," f it must 
be admitted that the language sounds much like 
" irreverent rhetoric," as a reviewer has characterized 
it. But it is very far from being u irreverent" in the 
judgment of the great multitude of those who know 
Christ " experimentally." It is rather the expression 
of an emotion which is felt by every true believer in 
Christ, Christendom through. 

This conscious nearness brings much else that is of 
solid value. These informed souls rest their well- 
being upon Christ, in all respects, present and future, 
with the most perfect composure. The head is pil- 
lowed as upon his bosom. When he speaks, it is felt 
to be, not peradventure, but verily. 

Such men feel that Christ would forsake heaven and 
create another, if they were excluded, sooner than 
leave them without, in darkness. From every realm 
there are spoken to such hearts divine assurances. 
Tempests burst in their fury upon them, but amid 
clouds and shrouds they always behold the face of 
their Father. The way is found, the believer no longer 
gropes, it is delightful walking. The path he has 

* Gal. ii. 20. t Hepworth. 



334 GOD-MAN. 

entered, ever charming and refreshing, winds up 
among the hills of God. New strength and light 
are afforded at every advance. The accumulated 
resources are immense ; all the wealth of the super- 
natural world seems at command. A voice divine 
speaks to the heart, and a breath wafted from another 
sphere greets and revives. 

In addition to this, the composure and conviction 
of Christian consciousness are so deep and well estab- 
lished, that while it is retained and made the court of 
appeal, and while the life is pure and good, nothing 
can disturb it. Doubts hitherto troublesome disap- 
pear, in some instances at once, in other cases grad- 
ually. These heart affections and reconciliations must 
be whelmed or destroyed before the spiritual eye suffers 
blindness. Intellectual difficulties have no weight, be- 
cause they are of an entirely different character, and 
belong not to this divinely guarded sphere of thought. 

This is the reason, also, why argument the most 
powerful, when addressed merely to the intellect of the 
believer, cannot reach or disturb his faith. He quickly 
perceives that what is " logically impregnable" may 
be " spiritually false," and awaits patiently the arrival 
of additional data, which he has every reason to pre- 
sume will confirm his faith and overthrow the hitherto 
a logically impregnable." 

These grand, intelligent, yet child-like sympathies 
pass by all surface objections, "just as a little child 
moves among the riddles of nature and of life as if 
they existed not." * 

* Strauss anticipated, from observation doubtless, what 
would be, and what in fact has been, the verdict of the 



MANIFESTATION. 335 

When told by the unbelievng that Christ was merely 
man, and that Christianity is dead, those who have 
received this divine installation wonder, and pity the 
ignorance from which spring the announcements. 

In the presence of this simple yet sublime faith, the 
whole broad horizon of Christian truth is lighted up 
with an effulgence new and transforming.* 

religious sense of humanity respecting his mythical Life of 
Jesus. "The results of our inquiry," he says in his closing 
chapter, " have apparently annihilated the greatest and most 
important part of that which the Christian has been wont to 
believe concerning his Jesus; have uprooted all the encour- 
agements which he has derived from his faith, and deprived 
him of all his consolations. The boundless stores of truth 
and life which, for eighteen hundred years, have been the ali- 
ment of humanity, seem irretrievably devastated, the most 
sublime levelled with the dust, God divested of his grace, 
man of his dignity, and the tie between heaven and earth 
broken. Piety turns away with horror from so fearful an 
act of desecration, and, strong in the impregnable self- 
evidence of its faith, boldly pronounces that — let an auda- 
cious criticism attempt what it will — all that the Scriptures 
declare and the church believes of Christ will still subsist as 
eternal truth; nor need one iota of it be renounced." 

And the reason that not "one iota" will be renounced 
is, that this critical review by one who seemingly, as events 
have turned, could have been otherwise better employed, 
does not recognize the majestic and all-convincing power of 
Christian consciousness — this added heart faculty which no 
man can confer, which no money can purchase, and which 
no reasoning, however forcibly addressed to the head, can, 
in the least, affect or remove. 

* "The gospel," writes Von Mailer, "is the fulfilment 
of all hopes, the perfection of all philosophy, the interpreter 
of all revelations, the key to all the seeming contradictions 
of the physical and moral world. Since I have known the 
Saviour, everything is clear." 



336 GOD-MAN. 

The really converted man is surprised at his former 
ignorance, and in time comes to look upon it, not as a 
reality, but a dream. He is, perhaps, not sufficiently 
charitable towards those who are still in the darkness. 
He has forgotten how the world appeared under the 
exclusive dominion of a different consciousness. 

Another grand feature of Christian consciousness is, 
that there is nothing in its nature which prevents its 
being as universal as natural consciousness. Given 
the historic Jesus, or in his absence the ideal Jesus, 
together with a willingness and purpose to accept him, 
and this truly u new " and ■' advanced " light will dawn 
upon the soul, be it cultivated or illiterate, be the place 
Boston or Bombay. Christianity has ever taken the 
bold and positive position that when one is willing to 
accept Jesus as divine, then the soul shall come into 
possession of this spiritual perception of things divine, 
and knoW) not merely from external, but from internal, 
or experimental evidence, that he of Nazareth was the 
Lord Christ, and superhuman.* And there is no case 
on record where this test has been patiently and hon- # 
estly applied in w T hich humanity has suffered disap- 
pointment. 

The nature of Christian consciousness is not, how- 
ever, such as to preclude the lapsing of individual 
Christians. Such fearful falls as are sometimes wit- 
nessed appear to many inexplicable ; but they are not. 
If one steps out of the Way and enters the sphere of 
head-thought, — being a free agent he can do this, — 
must he not expect, in relation to Christian truth, to 
be involved in confusion, discrepancies, and difficulties 

* John vii. 17. 



MANIFESTATION. 337 

more or less embarrassing? The head reports well 
for itself, but is a poor reporter of the heart. Jacob i 
should not be too severely criticised when saying, " I 
am a Christian in feeling, but a heathen in philosophy. 
There is light in my heart which goes out when I 
bring it into mv head." * 

Or, again, if the believer is tempted, and in conse- 
quence falls into an impure life, can he expect to retain 
his heart-thought of Christ, or the charming expe- 
riences and thrilling apprehensions which belong only 
to holiness? 

It is no matter of wonder, upon philosophical 
grounds, that men are backsliders, or that some who 
once understood, now talk of Christ in language of 
hypocrisy, though based upon faint recollections of 
what once was, or that Christians sometimes # flash 
downward, meteor-like, somewhere from heaven, and 
are buried completely in the dust ; for these men, be 
they backsliders, hypocrites, or apostates, have lost 
their spiritual consciousness as really and effectually 
as natural or brain consciousness is lost from a heavy 
blow dealt on the head. Such fallen men are spirit- 
ually dead ! 

These same considerations should lead unbelievers 
to be more considerate in many of their judgments. If 
one man may have certain faculties in healthy exercise 
which others have not, — and of this there can be no 
question, — then the believer may have a knowledge 

* This reminds one of Goethe's apparently contradictory 
statement: "I cannot be contented with one way of think- 
ing. As artist and poet I am polytheist; as naturalist I am 
pantheist.'' 

22 



33S GOD-MAN. 

of which another is totally ignorant. The objector may 
often have only the remotest conception of what he 
condemns. Human judgments of things are correct 
in proportion only to acquaintance with them ; cannot 
the right to judge of religious truth, therefore, be 
properly denied all who have not experimental knowl- 
edge of it? 

It is in view of such principles that the sceptical 
school should be quite respectful and modest in pres- 
ence of what is, from the nature of things, far beyond 
its comprehension. 

There is no difficulty in apprehending how 7 naturally 
Thomas Paine fell into error respecting the nature of 
the Christian religion and of biblical truth. " I know 
not how the printers have pointed the passage," he 
says, when criticising the Scriptures, "for I keep no 
Bible." 

The same may be said of David Hume, who con- 
fessed, late in life, that he u had never read the Bible 
with attention." It is but little that can be expected 
from such limited knowledge. It is not surprising 
that " Truth, who buys not and sells not, goes on her 
way, and makes no answer " to all such. 

Reverting to an illustration already employed, can 
we reasonably expect a blind man to go into ecstasies 
over a well-clad rose-bush even, or the most gorgeous 
sunset? There must, from necessity, be false and im- 
perfect conceptions, if there be the lack of a faculty 
upon which correct conceptions are absolutely depen- 
dent for production or recognition. 

The sceptic, therefore, is to be censured upon other 
grounds than the simple want of knowledge ; it is 



MANIFESTATION. 339 

rather from presuming to discuss, and to pass under 
wholesale condemnation, matters respecting which — 
it were so much better for him to remain silent.* 

We are also enabled, in view of what has been said, 
to place just estimates upon those sceptical opinions 
respecting Jesus which have been already cited. 

While they are very important in their legitimate 

* Carljle passed the following severe, but in every way 
just, criticism upon Voltaire : " But it is a much more serious 
ground of offence that he intermeddled in religion without 
being himself, in any measure, religious; that he entered the 
temple, and continued there, with a levity, which, in any 
temple where men worship, can beseem no brother man; 
that, in a word, he ardentlj', and with long-continued effort, 
warred against Christianity, without understanding beyond 
the mere superficies what Christianity was." 

Carlyle's more general observation admirably applies to 
others than Voltaire. "We believe, also, that the wiser 
minds of our age have already come to agreement on this 
question : or rather never were divided regarding it. Chris- 
tianity, the ' worship of sorrow,' has been recognized as 
divine on far other grounds than Essays on Miracles, and 
by considerations infinitely deeper than would avail in any 
mere ' trial by jury.' He who argues against it, or for it, in 
this manner, maybe regarded as mistaking its nature; the 
Ithuriel, though to our eyes he wears a body and the fashion 
of armor, cannot be wounded with material steel. 

" Our fathers were wiser than we, when they said in deep- 
est earnestness what we often hear in shallow mockery, that 
religion is not of sense, but of faith; not of understanding, 
but of reason. He who finds himself without the latter, 
who, by all his studying, has failed to unfold it in himself, 
may have studied to great or to small purpose, we say not 
which; but of the Christian religion, as of many other 
things, he has, and can have, no knowledge." 



340 GOD-MAN. 

connection, as showing to what high position Jesus 
is elevated by the means of purely intellectual infer- 
ence, they have no application or value respecting 
Christian consciousness or heart-estimates. 

Referring to the fragmentary expressions of the 
radical school,* w T e frankly confess that we can see in 
them nothing distinctively Christian. Such words of 
praise, it is true, indicate an intellectual assent to the 
marvellous and pre-eminent character and life of Jesus. 

But when we recall other adverse statements from 
these same writers, we do not hesitate to assert, that 
their praises seem to have been wrung from reluctant 
hearts ; the men who utter them may not be outwardly 
immoral or impure, they may not be Jews, Moham- 
medans, or Buddhists, but certainly they are far, per- 
haps very far, from being Christians ; and ai*e they 
not, as some of their own number assert, inconsistent 
in not at once discarding the terms Christian and Chris- 
tianity, while maintaining their present position ?f 

Again, when a critical examination is made of ex- 
pressions from a class of Unitarian writers, who are 
neither extremely radical nor yet strictly with Chan- 
ning in their faith, can we escape the conviction that 
they are in reality destitute of Christian consciousness? 
Otherwise, would they employ language so fundamen- 
tally at variance with the Godhead of Christ? 

Unable to give any but a negative answer to the 
question, we must rule out their words, as not belong- 
ing to this class of argument. The grandest parade 
possible of capital H's in the pronouns His and Him 

* See page 317. t Appendix, R. 



MANIFESTATION. 34 1 

by no means constitutes effective faith in Jesus Christ. 
When Dr. Hedge, for instance, coolly remarks that 
all we behold in Christ " is essentially human, and 
although, providentially, officially he occupies a place 
peculiar to himself, psychologically there was nothing 
in him that is not, in its germ and possibility, in all 
men, and which all, in the full unfolding of their hu- 
manity, may not hope to realize ; " when Mr. Tenney, 
in his Ten Points of Difference between Unitarianism 
and Orthodoxy, says, " I believe that, while all men 
are the sons of God, Jesus Christ was pre-eminently 
the ' Son of God,' the chosen and best-beloved Son in 
a moral likeness to, and spiritual sympathy with, the^ 
one God ; in him I see reflected the attributes of the 
infinite God, acting on a finite scale ; he is to me the 
type of perfected human nature, allowing all of God 
morally to manifest himself through him ; . . . but 
I believe him to have been the son of Joseph and 
Mary ; " and when James Freeman Clarke says, in 
substance, that what is true of Jesus is true of many 
other men, except in degree, then the least we can 
say — and we say it in all kindness — is, that we do 
not comprehend how it is possible for these men to 
thus represent or misrepresent Christ, and to be at 
the same time in the possession of a Christ-conscious- 
ness — the most essential element of a Christian con- 
sciousness. 

But when we advance upon the still more conserva- 
tive Unitarian ground, and refer to individuals, we are 
aware of the extreme delicacy of our position. These 
conservative Unitarians, represented by such admira- 
ble names as Channing, Peabody, Robbins, and Hale, 



342 v GOD-MAX. 

who have given quite uniform expressions, which, in 
not a few instances, it is exceedingly difficult to dis- 
tinguish from the product of professed and genuine 
Christian consciousness, demand profound respect, 
and we are reluctant not to clasp their hand, and in- 
vite them without hesitation to our communion. But 
must we not be candid, as well as generous? 

If we allow that these confessions are the product 
of the heart-thought, instead of the highest and purest 
head-thought, it would be to say that these Unitarian 
gentlemen, by the most rigid test that can possibly be 
applied, are Christians, and that there is no distin- 
guishing them from the most orthodox believer. 

On the other hand, to say that these admissions 
are the product of a purified intellect, and not of a 
Christ-consciousness, would be to say that the authors, 
judging from their expressions merely, are not Chris- 
tians ; and to say this would array against us all their 
admirers. Hurtful comparisons, too, between pro- 
fessed Christians of far from faultless lives,* and the 
unquestioned purity of these distinguished and exem- 
plary men, would be at once instituted. 

It would also be affirmed that, if humanity can 
attain such excellence and devotion through the head- 

* We say it with grief, but there are, it is to be feared, not 
a few in the church who are destitute of Christian conscious- 
ness. Such moral obliquity and spiritual blindness as are 
sometimes witnessed seem utterly incompatible with its 
presence in the heart. 

And may we not hope that there are not a few who are 
not enrolled in the visible church, who are nevertheless in 
conscious communion with Christ? 



MANIFESTATION. 



343 



consciousness, then the heart-consciousness is alto- 
gether unnecessary. 

These difficulties, and many others growing there- 
from, are beyond measure perplexing, and a treatment 
of them will always be peculiarly embarrassing. 

Though freely reviewing these matters of opinion, 
there is no attempt at final settlement, and there will be 
throughout a disposition to " liberality " of judgment. 

May it not be possible, it is sometimes asked, that 
this class of thinkers whose views are under consid- 
eration are Christian at heart ; that the few expres- 
sions to which exception may be taken by orthodox 
believers are the product of head-thoughts, and that 
'while uttering them, they, like Jacobi, have merely 
removed, for a time, the light from the heart into the 
head? 

The difficulty with this supposition is, to understand 
how men of such pure hearts and clear heads, if in 
full possession of Christian consciousness, can, in these 
late times, fall into such apparent misconceptions of 
Christ as elsewhere appear in their writings. 

This is a difficulty so perplexing, we are free to con- 
fess, as to pass beyond the limits of satisfactory solution. 

Or may it not be, that they really enjoy the Chris- 
tian faith, but retain their connection with the Uni- 
tarian body under a slightly false coloring, in order 
that they may not lose influence, hoping thereby to 
do more in the end for Christ than open rupture 
would allow? 

The intention in such case may be commendable ; 
but is a position of this sort altogether creditable? 
Without good evidence, we are hardly disposed to im- 



344 



GOD-MAN. 



pute motives so questionable to men so honorable and 
aboveboard in all other matters as are these New 
England representatives of conservative Unitarianism. 

But is it not possible, it is again asked, that their 
present position is one of seeking and transition ; 
that their condition is like the blind man's in the gos- 
pel, whose sight was but partially restored ; and while 
education and social connections — cords not easily 
severed — may retain them for a time, that soon the 
noble confessions which have been heard from Hun- 
tington, Osgood, and Hepworth will adorn their own 
higher tributes of praise rendered to the Christ of God ? 

This is perhaps the more satisfactory supposition ; 
still, the time for taking this step from partial to per- 
fect faith seems unnecessarily protracted. 

But if the supposition be correct, these Unitarian 
friends, and all of like opinions, may rest assured, 
when the time comes that they will no longer give 
their influence in support of all forms of Unitarian- 
ism, and against Orthodoxy, and will allow them- 
selves to be classed as friends and allies, that then the 
evangelical church will be only too happy to welcome 
them to its broad fellowship and grand communion. 

But in the mean time we may be pardoned for 
merely holding in suspense their noble confessions 
concerning Jesus, in relation to the subject now under 
review. Time may give us more light, and add to 
their testimony a consideration vitally important and 
convincing. 

Enough has now been said respecting the nature 
and products of Christian consciousness in its rela- 
tions to Christ, and discriminations sufficiently close 



MANIFESTATION!. 345 

have been drawn, to enable us to judge with some 
degree of accuracy respecting the weight and force 
of its report concerning the general questions under 
examination. 

Notice, then, certain admitted principles and facts. 
It will be conceded, in the first place, we presume, 
that the quickened and the purely spiritual faculties 
of the soul render testimony at once the most unqual- 
ified and satisfactory. Eyesight, in its ordinary obser- 
vation, is not so reliable as soul-sight, in its peculiar 
sphere. It is in relation to such truth-attesting powers 
of soul that we examine facts and products of every 
class and character. Unless, then, modern philosophy 
is fundamentally in error, must not these spiritually 
awakened faculties, whose report is sought respecting 
Christ, be relied upon, if anything can be? 

Again, the decisions of this Christian consciousness, 
from the earliest dates to the present time, have been 
characterized as a matter of fact by as perfect uni- 
formity respecting Jesus as has attended the decisions 
of ordinary human consciousness respecting the most 
manifest truths and the most ordinary affairs of life. 

Different words and symbols, it is true, have been 
frequently employed, but close inspection, in case of 
all who profess a definite Christian experience, will 
discover that the thing symbolized is essentially the 
same. This thought finds support in numberless 
analogies. One man, for illustration, may call Niagara 
" grand," another " sublime," still another " very fine ; " 
and yet the impression of which the soul is conscious 
may be essentially the same in each instance. 

Different expressions respecting any object may 



346 GOD-MAN. 

arise, not from different conceptions of it, in every 
case, but from differences of habit or education, or 
from limited or enlarged vocabulary. So of expres- 
sions respecting Christ. 

The minor differences that divided Augustine and 
the Greek Church, Luther and Calvin, Wesley and 
Whiterield, can thus be accounted for, and by no 
means do they affect the general argument. 

Nor can the actual truth be ascertained, or judged 
of, by reference to the u incautious flights of some 
orthodox sermons." The expression and symbol of 
faith are too often not well chosen. 

Without in the least endangering the truth, we may 
also admit that many of the early symbols employed to 
express Christian doctrine have justly been u allowed 
silently to fall into disuse, as beyond the proper range 
of human thought and human language," and that 
many others will doubtless follow in their wake. 

This is not to be regretted, so long as the truth 
changes not. It is very doubtful if the world has yet 
discovered the scientific statement or symbol for the 
Trinity, and for other Christian doctrines, which is 
entirely satisfactory to universal Christian conscious- 
ness. The Scriptures have not given it. They leave 
us, as Nature does, to discover the science and definite 
statement of things.* 

The thought we would here clearly set forth and 
insist upon is independent of definite formula or sym- 
bol ; it is, that Christian consciousness, though em- 
ploying different terms, and giving varying scientific 

* An illustration of this feature of revelation is found in 
the Principia of Newton and the Cosmos of Humboldt. 



MANIFESTATIONS 347 

descriptions, has been absolutely uniform in this tes- 
timony. — that jfesus Christ is very God.* 

It is also to be borne in mind, that this verdict has 
been rendered, not by limited numbers, or by men of 
limited intelligence, but in lands enjoying the highest 
degree of civilization and culture, and also by multi- 
tudes of the loftiest intellects and purest hearts, and 
of the most exemplary- lives, which have adorned so- 
ciety for the past eighteen centuries. They are of 
such character, that the criticism sometimes made, that 
Christians have come to their conclusions simply from 
hearsay, or merely from force of example, is trivial 
and contemptible. Especially is this the case when 
the application is made to the faith of the multitudes 
who, at the present time, are accepting Christian truth 
and doctrine. 

Late generations, as a matter of fact, are ques- 
tioners, and do not accept statements as authority, 
unless convinced of their truthfulness. There is at 
present none too much regard on the part of children 
for the views and beliefs of parents, and none too 
much reverence for ancestry, f 

The real fact in the case is this : Christianity would 

* Appendix, S. 

t In these times, as a facetious writer has facetiously ex- 
pressed it, "each generation strangles and devours its prede- 
cessor. The young Feegeian carries a cord in his girdle for 
his father's neck; the young American, a string of proposi- 
tions or syllogisms in his brain, with which to finish the 
same relative. The old man says, ' Son, I have swallowed 
and digested the wisdom of the past; ' the young man says, 
'Sir, I proceed to swallow and digest thee, with all thou 
knowest.' " 



34$ GOD-MAN. 

vanish in a day under the light of modern investiga- 
tion, were it chiefly dependent upon tradition and 
hearsay. Were it not, in fine', in full possession of 
the immutable evidences of Christian conviction, and 
did it not effectually satisfy human want, it would 
not live an hour. Christians are as honest as sceptics ; 
they would, upon the above supposition, instantly 
brand Christianity as an impostor, dismiss, nay, drive 
it from their churches, and trample into the dust all its 
observances and symbolism. 

Equally incorrect is the claim that a multitude of 
adherents add nothing to the probabilities that a given 
belief is true. Such a fact, on the contrary, adds over- 
whelming evidence, and will be so admitted by all 
who understand the deep meaning underlying popular 
beliefs, especially when supported by learning and 
general intelligence.* 

In the light of these facts and conditions, consider, 
for a moment, the array of witnesses as they present 
themselves, even from the dawn of the Christian era 
to present times. 

What grand names appear during the apostolic age ! 
Men of unquestioned integrity and devotion, who 
were martyrs to the deep and abiding convictions of 
their Christian consciousness, rendered testimony at 

* Spencer states the case strongly : " A belief which gains 
extensive reception without critical examination, is thereby 
proved to have a general congruity with the various other 
beliefs of those who receive it; and in so far as these various 
other beliefs are based upon personal observation and judg- 
ment, they give an indirect warrant to the one with which 
thev harmonize." 



MANIFESTATION. 349 

once definite, intelligent, and of the most striking uni- 
formity. 

What distinguished names, too, adorn the apologetic 
period ! The wisest men of the world were they ; men 
who constituted the repositories of the world's learning 
and philosophy, and whose piety equalled their wis- 
dom. Though sometimes unsatisfactory in their la- 
bored and metaphysical statements, they were clear as 
sunlight in the testimony of their Christian faith and 
consciousness. Such the report of all historians of 
that period. 

During the middle ages, also, there was, among those 
who could lay any real claim to Christian faith, an ever- 
growing and deepening conviction respecting the deity 
of Jesus Christ* 

When Anselm, the Plato of the middle ages ; Thom- 
as Aquinas, the philosopher and moralist of Italy ; 
Thomas a Kempis, of France, some of whose writings 
are as fresh to-day as when first written ; when Abe- 
lard, whose skill was more than a match for th*e most 
distinguished masters of his times, and St. Victor Hu- 
go, Peter Lombard, William Occam, and such men as 
Eckart and Tauler, of Germany ; and when such 

* Ever after the Council of Nice, if there was wavering in 
the Catholic world as to the two natures, divine and human, 
in one person, it was in favor, not of the human, but of the 
divine. The conviction of Christ's deitj rose to such a pitch 
at times, as almost to eliminate his humanity; and in order 
to secure his unmixed divinity, his mother was theoretically 
made a goddess. All this is by no means surprising, for 
Christian consciousness reports not of Christ's human, but 
of his divine character : the human may almost be said to 
stand in the wav of the divine. 



35° GOD-MAN. 

bodies of believers as the Huguenots, Waldenses, Nes- 
torians, and Catholics, all through those times, clung 
to the formula Verus Homo, Verus Deus, very tfkan, 
and eery God, all question as to the position and faith 
of the scholars, and of the great body of believers dur- 
ing the middle ages, should be forever settled and si- 
lenced. 

Coming down to comparatively modern times, and 
passing through the countries already traversed while 
in search of sceptical testimony, we are met by a list 
of high and worthy supporters of Christian faith and 
doctrine. 

Mosheim, Ernesti, Euler, Haller, Gellert, Zollikofer, 
Bengel, Zinzendorf, Herder, Schleiermacher, Schlegel, 
Neander, Olshausen, Dorner, Rothe, Hengstenberg, 
Stahl, Krummacher, Hagenbach, Tholuck, Lange, 
Liicke, Ullmann, Stier, Gieseler, Kurtz, and Guericke, 
nobly and resolutely confirm the truth of past ages. 

And these renowned Germans possessed qualities of 
intelligence and virtue of such an order that the New 
England supporters of infidelity, while combating their 
faith, appear to signal disadvantage, if not in striking 
insignificance. 

Scarcely less important is the support derived from 
those distinguished Frenchmen whose names are a 
perpetual good report from that country so often 
plunged in error. 

Calvin, Pascal, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, Fenelon, La 
Rue, Massillon, Saurin, Vinet, D'Aubigne, Gaussen, 
the two Monods, Cuvier, and Ampere, Descartes, Cor- 
neille, Lamartine, Racine, and Louis XIV. are wit- 
nesses whose testimonv it is difficult for modern unbe- 



MANIFESTATION. 35 1 

lievers to impeach, and whose grasp of intellect raises 
them high above the puerile criticisms of the day, which 
venture to class them among the duped of mankind. 

The list of Englishmen is too full to find complete 
representation in these pages. 

Berkeley, Cromwell, Locke, Milton, Boyle, De 
Quincey, Brewster, Faraday, Whewell, and the entire 
list of English Christian poets, are a few of the many 
men whose intelligence ranks among that of the most 
lofty, and whose characters have been no less lofty than 
their intelligence.* 

Distinguished Americans who have been, and still 
are, representatives of Christian faith, are too familiar 
to need mention. They have been among the most 
honored of the nation's rulers, statesmen, and judges ; 
the most distinguished of her divines, reformers, teach- 
ers, men of letters, and men of science. 

And does it not indicate, in view of the number and 
character of these Christian believers, an amount of 
arrogance hardly conceivable in men who have not 
completely lost their wits, when modern infidels and 

* To these may be added another general list, including 
those who have accepted the Christian faith after having been 
resolute advocates of an infidelity not unlike that which is 
now advertised as the New Religion, and successor of Chris- 
tianity. 

Count Brandt, Lord Littelton, Richard Cecil, Boyle, Bate- 
man, Baron Haller, John Newton, and Bunyan. 

The Dutch savants and the Scottish philosophers who be- 
long to this class of foreign advocates of Christian doctrine, 
are numerous enough to furnish material for an additional 
chapter. But we must not go beyond the limits first pro- 
posed. 



352 GOD-MAN. 

radicals, if one is disposed to make the distinction, 
coolly and sneeringly assert that all past testimony to 
the truth of Christianity, whatever be the source, is not, 
by them, to be entertained for a moment? 

We do not* wonder that such unparalleled boldness 
and presumption have, for the time, bewildered the 
friends of truth, and left them with nothing to say in 
reply. 

But despite this, the witnesses still remain. Their 
voices* are yet heard. 

Downright assertion and negation have power to 
dazzle and blind but for a moment ; after that, the eye 
regains its power, and looks with new delight upon 
the nearly twenty centuries w T hich, in their solemn train, 
" have brought offerings, myrrh, frankincense, and gold, 
ay, and affections, tears, and worship, to the shrine " 
of the Lord Christ ; and modern Christian souls, in 
the sympathy of this common divine life, whatever 
may have been a the varying chimes of theological 
bells," unite with all the past, and there is heard rising 
high above all the tumults of modern contention the 
same hymn east and west, first and last : " Blessing, and 
glory, and honor, and power be unto him who sitteth 
upon the throne, and to the Lamb forever.'' 

Since then this vast array and unanimity of testimony 
meet us as a simple fact, can it be ignored or set aside 
with a slur, especially by those who are the most 
poorly qualified to judge, and who, by their own con- 
fession, are utterly ignorant of Christian experience 
and Christian consciousness? 

The only real question to be entertained is, therefore, 
whether or not this great body of Christians have based 






MANIFESTATION. 353 

their faith for eighteen centuries upon brain-born no- 
tions. Have all these strong intellects and noble hearts, 
all these honored divines, poets, orators, statesmen, 
and benefactors of mankind, thought that they believed 
in something, when in reality they believed in noth- 
ing? Have they been duped by a " Galilean carpenter 
and a dozen illiterate fisherman " ? Is it possible that 
Christ is only a Buddha, an Odin, a reformer, a phan- 
tom God? 

Are the supreme satisfaction and happiness experi- 
enced in Jesus Christ and him crucified only imagi- 
nary? Nay, when Christian people, in perfect con- 
fidence, have said, with the blind man, " Now I see," 
and have heard distinctly spoken within their hearts 
the words, " Qo in peace," and u Thy sins are forgiven 
thee," and w T hen all classes of Christians have felt 
Christ by the bedside in sickness and death, and have 
found him dear and near even in hovels dark and dingy, 
in wild forests, amid chilling frosts, in brilliant cities, 
amid burning sands, and found him everywhere im- 
parting spiritual vigor to the soul, and making it radi- 
ant with imperishable hopes and immortal life, — has 
it been only a dream? 

Then, that being the fact, Jesus was, of course, mere- 
ly man. Joseph was his father. He had human na- 
ture like our own — nothing else. He is dead and 
buried ; let him alone. But worse still ! The charm 
of the gospel disappears. The whole story is an idle 
tale. Death-beds are henceforth surrounded, nay, 
buried, in deepest doubt and gloom. Human hope 
is gone ; the way to heaven, if there be one, is lost. 
The world is an orphan. A pall of silence, with noth- 
2 3 



354 



GOD-MAN. 



ing of relief, hangs forever over all that is most dear 
and sacred to human heart and thought. Doomed 
believer, you are yet in your sins ! 

Nor is this all. Christian faith is not, in this calami- 
ty, the only sufferer. Faith in humanity and in the 
boasted dignity of human nature is likewise crushed 
in this downfall of Christian belief. 

If all these men, through all these ages, have only 
dreamed out so strangely their experience, then can any 
dependence be placed upon man's thought and opin- 
ion? Nay, man's nature is a falsehood. Trample 
upon it, offer it your abuse and insults. It has no 
manhood. 

But reserve your grossest insults for the people of 
Christian lands ; they are less worthy of respect than 
pagans. No pagan has been satisfied with his God- 
man. Christians, Christendom through, are satisfied, 
and ask no more. No longer talk of miracles. Here 
is something more inexplicable and incomprehensible 
than all miracles, fictitious or real, this strong, abiding, 
and intense belief in — nothiizg. 

Deception respecting the records of Christ's life pre- 
sented a picture black enough. But this, this decep- 
tion of the cpickened spiritual perceptions of the best 
and greatest men on earth, is startling, frightful, and 
appalling in the extreme. 

We can henceforth rely upon nothing. Vice and 
virtue can nevermore be distinguished : men must 
doubt and deny everything. O, madness ! 

Let us escape from such a world, — or else — be- 
lieve ; then all our difficulties will disappear in the 
morning blush of an eternal faith in Christ our Lord 
and God. 



XII. 

CHRISTIANITY, 



THE impression which a man makes upon the 
age in which he lives is a good test of his char- 
acter and greatness. 

A better one, however, is found in the institutions 
established by him, the reforms inaugurated, and the 
impression made through them upon subsequent ages. 

This is the light in which Christianity must be re- 
garded in its relation to its Founder. 

This is not the place, however, to treat of the nature 
or philosophy of Christianity ; the most that is now 
proposed has relation to the system as an historical fact. 

That Jesus was the originator of Christianity is 
beyond dispute.* We can trace all the marked 

* De Wette clearly states the relation between Christ and 
Christianity: "The person of Jesus, his life and death, and 
faith in him, form the centre of Christianity." 

Bunsen indirectly confirms the above : " There are for me 
two undeniable miracles, the creation of the universe by 
God, and the salvation of the world bv Tesus Christ." 

"Does not Christianity trace to Jesus innumerable moral 

355 



35^ GOD-MAN. 

movements and influences coming from it back to him 
more readily than we trace a sunbeam to its source in 
the sun. 

The world had possessed ample time and opportu- 
nity to develop a universal religion, but poorly had 
the work been performed. Pagan creeds were out- 
grown. There was darkness everywhere. A crisis 
was looked for. Nations held their breath, as Nature 
does before some great movement in her domains 

blessings," says Martineau, " and call us to reverence him 
for guidance in the intricacies of duty, for light in the cham- 
ber of grief, for power of endurance amid the struggles of 
suffering nature, and for prospects of attractive grandeur 
beyond the grave?" 

Says Dr. Eliot, speaking of the words of Christ, ■" It is 
not only that the words are strong in themselves and in the 
spiritual truth conveyed, but that they are made personal to 
Christ himself, as the agent of their fulfilment. Separate 
them from him, the speaker, and they are altogether lost. 
They are not abstract propositions to be proved, but per- 
sonal testimony to be believed. We may verify them by the 
spiritual experience of personal faith ; but we cannot ab- 
stract them from Jesus himself, who first proved their truth, 
and gave it to us as the established law of life, without 
denying its veracity at the same time. The Christian system 
is the truth as it is in Jesus, not in abstract propositions. 
We cannot hold to it as Christian truth ; or, at least, I can- 
not, when we have falsified him." 

Lecky, in his History of Rationalism, confesses that " the 
great characteristic of Christianity, and the great moral proof 
of its divinity, is, that it has been the main source of the 
moral development of Europe; and that it has discharged 
this office not so much by the inculcation of a system of 
ethics, however pure, as by the assimilating and attractive 
influence of a perfect ideal." 



MANIFESTATION. 357 

takes place. His arrival was awaited, he came and 
his system was put on trial. The old order stopped, 
the new began, and the night became day, in which 
men began to work as became them. 

Such is the claim ; have facts made it good ? 

It should be constantly kept before the mind in this 
discussion, that Jesus was not merely the preacher or 
publisher of Christianity, but its author. It was a 
factor of his life. Himself was the glad tidings. It 
should likewise be remembered that by the term 
Christ ianity is meant more than some of its compre- 
hensive morals, more than its sublime sentiments, 
rather the s} r stem, as a whole, including especially its 
marked characteristics, the incarnation and God-man, 
sacrifice and atonement, regeneration and new con- 
sciousness. These are what constitute its vital phases, 
and it is in them'that is secured for it the guardianship 
of the world. This thought will bear testing. 

Is it not true that, before Plato and since Plato, the 
idea of a perfect and real man, a true Prometheus, sin- 
less and infinite, a contradiction and a fact, has been 
what has held the world as by fascination? Has not 
the cross of Christ always been the ordained rendez- 
vous of Christianity? Has it not stood " amidst the 
lapse of ages, and the waste of worlds, a single and 
solitary monument" of grand and heroic triumphs? 
Has not death, for once, — His death, — inspired in 
human hearts the profoundest courage ? Has not the 
peace and disinthralment of humanity been wrung, as 
a matter of fact, from the sweat, agony, and blood of 
Calvary ? 

There can be no doubt, upon impartial inquiry, 



35§ GOD-MAN. 

that in these fundamental doctrines connected with 
Christ has slumbered, as in some of the undeveloped 
resources of nature, an unexplained, unknown, but 
inexhaustible power. 

Every religious reform since the Christian era has 
begun with a revival of the gospel doctrine of justifi- 
cation by faith, not in Christ as a teacher, nor as an 
example, but as an atonement. And it will be thus to 
the end of time. But for this element of its faith, the 
Christian system would be to-day as forceless among 
the masses of men as many opinions which are al- 
ready worn out and forever cast aside. 

In fine, should Christianity announce that Jesus is 
merely man, and that his life and death differ not in 
kind from those of any other man, then the church, 
and Christianity, as De Pressense forcibly represents, 
must lay themselves down by his mortal remains, and 
also die. For their life absolutely depends upon a di- 
vine Lord, a divine Saviour, and a vicarious atonement. 

We repeat, then, that Christianity, as thus defined, 
— and no other definition can be admitted, or is at all 
adequate and consistent, — is the product of the an- 
nouncements, together with the life and death of Jesus 
the Christ. And upon these grounds its triumphs and 
conquests, whatever they may be, are essentially his, 
and primarily his alone. 

Christianity may thus be regarded as a kind of 
" fifth Gospel," as readable and reliable (why not?) as 
the other four. It certainly is not in advance of its 
author ; its character is no better established, and its 
excellence is not greater. If its characteristics are 
grand and unparalleled, then likewise are his. 



MANIFESTATION. 359 

" Every religion fully represents its founder," and no 
religion rises higher than its founder. " No mortal 
ever worshipped a dead God, or erected a temple un- 
der a gibbet." 

It is clear, then, that the historic progress and the 
present attitude of Christianity in the civilized world 
must enter as important elements into our estimation 
of the person and character of Jesus. If everything 
is at present adverse to the system which he inaugu- 
rated, it would matter much less what were his per- 
sonal claims, the confessions of his disciples, or the 
beliefs of the fathers and their contemporaries. Even 
modern faith and admissions could, under such cir- 
cumstances, hardly withstand the cold and keen taunts 
of infidelity. 

But, on the other hand, if the world is still moved 
through agencies set at work by Jesus, or supernatu- 
rally continued by him ; and if great and good men 
still adore him, no less now than did they of the fish- 
erman's craft in Galilee ; and if his system yet holds 
the determining sway among the thoughts, customs, 
and characters of men ; nay, more, if he continues 
to fulfil all the anticipations of the race in its pe- 
riods of search, realizing more and greater things 
than they ever dreamed or dared hope for, then new 
force and significance must be imparted to his char- 
acter and life. All the " anticipations of an intellec- 
tual dynasty " that have been struggling for realization 
will seem to find their fulfilment in such a one. All 
the mute prophecies which had been in the hearts 
of men, and almost upon their lips, will, under such 
circumstances, and in presence of such a character, 



360 GOD-MAN. 

break their silence, and be outspoken in his favor. If 
Christianity is really and grandly triumphant, then 
also will the light play backward, and bring to notice 
much which has been hitherto disregarded or misun- 
derstood among men ; while He who introduced the 
system so long symbolized, cannot fail to be regarded, 
even from Adam to the last man, as the Light of the 
world. 

While seeking the exact historic relation and import 
of these questions, we must not shrink from looking 
upon the dark as well as the bright side of the picture. 

We are compelled to admit, in the first place, that 
historically, the triumphs of Christianity have been 
far from continuous ; and that now, after nearly two 
thousand years, matters are not altogether what the 
Christian could desire. 

In the present strife for the mastery of the world to 
Christian or infidel ideas, none can fail to see that a 
current of doubt, deep, and dark, and threatening, is 
setting in upon the church. It has learning ; it also 
has genius, and men of every character of belief, un- 
belief, and disbelief. There are infidels who are filled 
with a spirit of desperation. There are fierce and 
disorderly sceptics. There are German theistic, and 
atheistic commentators, and Germans both in Germany 
and America, who would throw off all the restraints 
of civil and religious authority — a lawless mob I 

There are also to be seen the misty and mysterious 
faces of Carlyle and Emerson, which are thought by 
many to be turned against Christianity. There are 
gentlemen and scholars in all the various relations and 
professions of life who steadily oppose the church and 



MANIFESTATION. 36 1 

its belief. There are likewise bewildered friends, who, 
occupying some middle position of doubt, seem upon 
the point of breaking from the ancient faith, and mov- 
ing on with those who are openly opposed to it. 

This flood tide of error and scepticism seems, to 
not a few, to be rolling on with calm, yet resistless 
progress, as if confident of submerging ultimately the 
whole religious world. 

Taking this exclusive view of the subject, the con- 
dition of Christianity appears somewhat deplorable. 
The conquest of the world, especially when so many 
pagans, as soon as enlightened, become atheists and 
pantheists instead of Christians, seems to many utterly 
improbable. Surrounded by this condition of things, 
it is possible that some of the friends of the system 
are looking into one another's faces as they meet, 
wondering, and inquiring if they must really give over 
the struggle. May we not, perhaps they say, admit 
that Christ was a very good man, without claiming 
for him supreme divinity? May it not be enough to 
say that Christ's kingdom will last for a time, and 
then, like all else, pass away? Are we sure we are 
right while maintaining the old views, and will not 
our mortification be much less, in case of final defeat, 
provided we concede extreme ground, and occupy, 
with our opponents, some middle position, and avoid, 
thereby, all controversy? 

It is possible that some of our readers are well nigh 
discouraged, waver a little, and reply — Yes. Espe- 
cially is this likely to be the case with those who have 
been deprived of their faith in the unquestioned con- 
quests of Christianity by the assertions of sceptics, 



362 GOD-MAN. 

which have been made with much assurance, that the 
triumphs of other religions, such as Buddhism, Islam- 
ism, the faiths of Odin and Zoroaster, have more than 
surpassed all the boasted triumphs of the Christian 
system, and that all together they must inevitably dis- 
appear under the grander advance of superior social 
culture, accurate scientific investigations, and higher 
civilizations. The confidence with which these asser- 
tions are sometimes made leaves, apparently, but the 
slightest hope of any possible different issue. 

We do not hesitate to give due prominence to these 
considerations. We frankly acknowledge the facts. 
It is true that Christianity has seen, since its planting, 
many a winter, as well as summer ; and it does appear 
strange, upon the supposition that it is what it pro- 
fesses to be, that it should have had a single dark day, 
whereas it has, first and last, seen many of them. 

It was this fact which staggered Lord Herbert, and 
to this may be traced his infidelity, though he con- 
fessed, at last, that " Christianity is the best religion." 

Thomas Paine, too, in giving his reasons why 
Christianity cannot be true, says, u If it had been 
divinely inspired, would it not, long before this time, 
have extended throughout the world ? " 

But, on the other hand, may there not be some rea- 
sons outside Christianity, reasons beyond its control 
even, which may account in part for its tardy move- 
ments among the nations of the earth? Has it not 
had elements to contend with which God himself has 
not overcome? Providence certainly allows of other 
weathers than sunshine. When the thing all men 
desire actually comes on earth, not all are satisfied. 
Some will oppose it. Such is human nature. 



MANIFESTATION. 363 

It is possible, too, that there are good reasons why 
heathen become atheists and pantheists, instead of 
Christians. Not until the faith, love, and disinterest- 
edness of nominally Christian nations interpret Chris- 
tianity, and furnish practical explanation suited to the 
teachings of missionaries, will their preaching be 
attended by any remarkable and deserved success. 
Success is always attained u where the heathen can 
see Christianity in the families of Christians." Pa- 
gans, like most unregenerate persons in civilized lands, 
find no fault with the doctrine of Christians, but with 
the conduct of its representatives. 

Francis Newman has well expressed the thought, 
" While nations called Christian are only known to 
heathens as great conquerors, powerful enemies, sharp 
traders, often lax in morals, and apparently without 
religion, the fine theories of a Christian teacher would 
be as vain to convert a Mohammedan or Hindoo to 
Christianity, as the soundness of Seneca's moral trea- 
tises to convert me to Roman pagauism. Christendom 
has to earn a new reputation before Christian precepts 
will be thought to stand in any essential or close rela- 
tion with the mystical doctrine of Christianity." 

More than this : may it not be true that even the 
Hindoo, who lives in the world of thought, who be- 
lieves that the knowledge of Brahm is the highest 
end of life, who believes that every divine man must 
be a twice-born man, is nearer right than the Euro- 
pean, who seems to say to the Hindoo, Man is made 
only to buy and sell, eat and drink, make money and 
die? 

The reply of the American Indian chief to a mis- 



364 GOD-MAN. 

sionary who was urging him to embrace Christianity 
is suggestive — almost thrilling, Straightening him- 
self up, with a consciousness of superior rectitude, 
indignation quivering on his curled lip, and fire flash- 
ing from his eagle eye, he exclaimed, "Christian? — 
Christian lie ! Christian cheat ! Christian steal ! drink ! 
murder ! rob me of my lands ! Devil ! I'll be no 
Christian ! " 

Yes, a " new dispensation in heathen lands to re- 
trieve the lost reputation of Piety" is necessary, in 
order to commend Christian faith to pagan thought 
and heart ; and no argument based upon its failure, 
under existing circumstances, is worthy a moment's 
consideration.* 

In view of the facts in the case, it is not a matter of 

* We say it with great reluctance, and only because the 
interests of truth seem to require it, but may not Christianity 
have also suffered in the hands of some of our missionaries, 
who have been but poorly qualified, by nature and discipline, 
for the work? In a little book, called The Modern Buddhist, 
translated by Mr. Alabaster, foreign minister in Siam, we 
constantly find such complaints as the following against 
the missionary, in his answers to perfectly honest doubts 
and questions : " When I had said this, the missionary became 
angry, and, saying- 1 iv as hard to teach, left me."' The mis- 
sionary replied, " If any one spoke like this in European 
countries, he would be put in prison" The missionary an- 
swered, " ''It is waste of my time to converse with evil men, 
who will not be taught," and so left me." Well does Farrar 
remark that "This, it need hardly be said, was not St. Paul's 
method, but the very reverse of it." We would not venture 
this reflection against any of our self-denying and noble 
Christian missionaries, had not some of their own number 
confessed as much, and still more. 



MANIFESTATION. 365 

surprise that so few pagans have accepted Christian- 
ity, but is it not quite an occasion of wonder that any, 
nay, that so many, have pronounced in its favor?* 

But, it is replied, why has not the heathen world 
had this "■ new dispensation " ? That it has not, is not 
that an objection to the system? 

No ! That every part of the habitable world is not 
full of unexceptionable and devoted Christians is no 
fault of Christianity. Men are not such in spite of 
Christianity. They are deniers, scoffers, and practical 
atheists, because they will be deniers, scoffers, and 
practical atheists. And — we speak it reverently — 
God, in opposition to their wills, cannot, or will not, 
make them otherwise. That men continue to be sin- 
ners is no more an objection to Christianity than it is 
an objection to Jehovah ! 

If certain of our readers are not satisfied with these 
facts and statements, and continue to doubt the effi- 
cacy and divine nature of Christianity, we can but 
ask that a final judgment be not speedily rendered. 
Time will tell — is telling. We heartily subscribe to 
Carlyle's test of things. " The best thing," he says, 
" in the long run, is the strong thing. Await the issue. 
In this great duel, Nature herself is umpire : the thing 
which is deepest rooted in nature, which we call tru- 
est, that thing will be found growing at last." 

This brings us directly to the other consideration 
already alluded to, and which is perhaps equally pro- 
ductive of objection. The case is stated thus : " If we 
test systems by their success, Christianity is, as yet, a 

* Appendix, T. 



366 GOD-MAN. 

long distance from holding the first rank among the 
world's religions. 

While showing, on the one hand, that this exception 
is not well taken, we would not, on the other, utter a 
single reflection against whatever has been achieved 
by either of the religions referred to. 

The magnitude of some of their movements none 
can question. That was no sham, but a real victory, 
which Buddhism achieved in China. This religion 
found that country practically destitute of a God and a 
divine mediator. Its first step was to announce both. 
It declared the existence of an Invisible, divine and infi- 
nite. It taught the actual or possible manifestation of 
the Almighty in the form of an infant ruler. These 
ideas were caught up by the people as if they had 
been starving because destitute of them. 

But observe : when a faith, recognizing a God and 
the duty of consecration to him, triumphs over materi- 
alism and practical atheism, it becomes not a foe to 
the Christian faith, but an indirect witness of its truth. 
These temporary triumphs of Buddhism are precisely 
as we would have them. Yet, if we read aright, the 
end comes. Soon a lame and blind man, as in the 
history of Roman mythology, will be elevated to the 
throne and declared to be God. Then will the people 
become disheartened, disgusted, and look for some- 
thing better. 

The startling conquests of Mohammed over the 
idolaters of India, over the fire-worshippers of Per- 
sia, the Greeks, the Visigoths, and the corrupted 
Christian nations also, indicate that truth was upon 
the side, not of the conquered, but of the conquerors. 



MANIFESTATION. 367 

We have already stated that the principle upon which 
those victorious soldiers acted was correct. " God," 
they said, " exists. Man is his minister, is his repre- 
sentative, to do his will on earth." How unfortunate, 
indeed, it had been for the principles of truth, had not 
those soldiers, contending for such ideas, been well 
nigh invincible against those who failed equally to 
recognize the truth of things ! 

The ManichaBan religion, too, which spread so rap- 
idly through Syria and Palestine, Egypt and North 
Africa, as far as Italy, Gaul, and Spain, borrowed 
the best thoughts of Magianism, Judaism, Buddhism, 
and much from Christianity. 

Worship without an altar, the form of prayer, the 
adoration of Christ as a heavenly principle, temper- 
ance and virtue, practical Christianity, in fact, were 
its chief elements of success ; and thus far it was a 
triumph of Christian ideas over those which were par- 
tially or thoroughly pagan. 

And the primitive religion of Scandinavia had not 
been modified by Odin if his faith had been no bet- 
ter or no more Christian than the faith supplanted. 
Zoroaster, too, had not been a successful reformer had 
not his protestantism been a resolute protest against 
what was more anti-Christian, rather, perhaps, more 
unchristian, than his own views. 

The grand triumphs of corrupted Christianity in 
the form of Roman Catholicism is likewise no har- 
binger of ill. In fine, all these systems combined 
threaten no disaster to the truth. Though apparently 
hostile, they are in fact distant allies. In all their con- 
quests Christianity has more to hope than to fear. 



368 GOD-MAN. 

But the treatment thus far has been chiefly negative. 
It is now time to inquire what has, in reality and 
directly, been accomplished by the Christian system. 

It certainly had a feeble and inauspicious beginning. 
A manger, a babe, a young man, a small company of 
disciples, were, in a human point of view, about all. 

And when Christianity started out for the conquest 
of the world, it had but a handful of men. Thirty 
years after the birth of Christ the entire church met in 
an upper chamber of an ordinary house, and did not 
fill it. This company of Christians owned not a single" 
church edifice or synagogue anywhere in the world. 
" If they spoke their own language, it betrayed them by 
its mongrel dialect." " Hebetes," " stolidi," "fatui," 
fet infausti," " athei," were the harsh names heaped 
upon them. Truly, as Novalis says, "the unpoetic 
exterior of Christianity seems only to be lent it." 

At its advent it found a sad state of things on earth. 
Being misunderstood, and attacking the prejudices of 
men, it met furious opposition. It seemed left for a 
time to contend against a whole enraged world. In 
its essence it was what all men wanted ; but its form, 
like that of the founder, was misinterpreted. It was 
bread, but thought to be a stone ; it was fish, the true 
ichthus, but mistaken for a serpent ; it was an egg in 
the hand of God, but was rejected as a scorpion. The 
heated and selfish interests of minds, consciences, and 
hearts appeared to be in blind strife, with their fury 
turned against it. The story of the persecutions is too 
long and familiar to allow repetition. " Men clothed 
in garments smeared with pitch, and then lighted up 
as living torches to add a horrid lustre to the festivities 



MANIFESTATION. 369 

of the emperor," illustrate the treatment its represen- 
tatives received.* 

But all this only added greater lustre to the new 
religion which could inspire such devotion. Cruelties 
of other forms only drew fresh life from the axe used 
against it. No satisfactory explanation of this con- 
tinued life from repeated death has yet been given. 
Analogies settle nothing, and add confusion. " Men," 
says Carlyle, " never did believe idle, songs, or risk 
their souls' life in analogies." 

But this is not all. The grand and aggressive move- 
ments Christianity instituted can never be explained 
on natural grounds. It affected society in every direc- 
tion. The same day on which the entire church had 
gathered in one room saw the addition of three thou- 
sand members. Thence its march — rather its flight 
— among the nations is marvellous and unparalleled, f 

Its conquests were gained, not in barbarous terri- 

* White, in The Eighteen Christian Centuries, gives the 
following account of the persecutions under Nero : " These, 
regardless of age, or condition, or sex, he destroyed by every 
means in his power. He threw young maidens into the am- 
phitheatre, where the hungry tigers leaped out upon them; 
he exposed the aged professors of the gospel to fight in single 
combat with the trained murderers of the circus, called the 
Gladiators; and once, in ferocious mockery of human suffer- 
ing, he enclosed whole Christian families in a coating of 
pitch and other inflammable materials, and, setting fire to 
the covering, pursued his sport all night by the light of these 
living flambeaux. Some of his actions it is impossible to 
name." 

Yet the persecutions of Nero, in extent and virulence, can 
hardly compare with those of Decius and Diocletian. 

t Appendix, U. 

2A 



37° GOD-MAN. 

tories alone, but in classic lands also. Where Euclid 
and Aristotle had investigated science, where Demos- 
thenes and Cicero had uttered their eloquence, where 
Solon and Lycurgus had imparted wisdom and law, 
where Homer and Virgil had sung, and where Sallust 
and Livy had recorded their histories, it was equally 
victorious. 

And more than this ; whatever its achievements 
have been, they are the result of its internal power 
and excellence, and in no way were they dependent 
upon external force. Force, whenever attempted, for 
its spread or defence, from the hapless stroke of Peter's 
sword in the garden to the present time, has resulted 
only unfortunately. 

Independent of either the political, military, or civil 
arm has its grandest and most decisive advance been 
made. 

It stood apart, as if instinctively, from every form 
of politics, Jewish and heathen. 

Wherever the sword has prepared the way, it has 
refused to follow, or has followed only reluctantly. 
All mechanical means and civil contrivances, political 
movements and imperial influence, have advanced its 
interests not one step. u Not to the diadem of Con- 
stantine, the tiara of Gregory, the gorgeousness of 
Leo, nor the fagots of Torquemada," is it in the least 
beholden.* 

* The latest and most reliable verdict is, that Constantine 
owed much more to Christianity than it did to him. It seems 
quite clear from De Pressense and F. W. Farrar that it was the 
grand successes already achieved by Christianity which in- 
fluenced the emperor to embrace it. The language of Farrar 



MANIFESTATION. 371 

" If the church had only been let alone, to work out 
her true results by her own vital force, Christianity 
would have been a hundred fold stronger than she is 
to-day." 

Nay, in proportion to the simple preaching of Jesus 
Christ with apostolic method and spirit, unencumbered 
by human invention and contrivance, — the last method 
man's wisdom would have advised, — in that propor- 
tion, and in that proportion only, has Christianity al- 
ways been successful, grand, and invincible. 

is especially clear and satisfactory. iC It was a divine provi- 
dence," he says, "which ordained that not till after three 
centuries of unaided struggle, — victorious, not because of 
princes, but in spite of them, — when Diocletian had retired 
smitten with a vague disease, and Galerius, eaten of worms, 
had revoked his cruel edicts, and Maximin, terrified by famine 
and pestilence, had restored their plundered goods, and Licin- 
iusand Maxentius had perished miserably in prison or in 
battle, that the terrified world flung itself at the feet of the 
oppressed, and Christianity mounted the imperial throne. 
It did not succeed because Constantine became a Christian, 
but Constantine became a Christian because it had succeeded. 
Long before the battles of Adrianople or the Milvian Bridge, 
Christianity had carried the day. ' We are but of yesterday, 
said Tertullian, and we have filled all that belongs to you — 
the cities, the fortresses, the free towns, the very camps, the 
palace, the senate, the forum ; we leave to you the temples 
only.' " 

" Little, indeed, did Christianity owe to that trimming em- 
peror and unbaptized catechumen, — that strange Christian 
indeed ! — who placed his own bust on the statues of Apollo, 
who thought the nails of the true cross a fitting ornament for 
the bridle of his charger, on whose extraordinary figure the 
robes so besmeared with gold and crusted with jewels, could 
not conceal the Neronian stains of a son's and a consort's 
blood." 



372 GOD-MAN. 

By such simple means against odds and obstacles, 
sometimes apparently overwhelming, the religion of 
of Christ — his representative, in fact — started forth, 
and gained, as we have seen, speedy conquests in all di- 
rections. Other religious oracles became silent.* Al- 

* We hear the bitter complaints of Porphyry, that under the 
sound of the gospel, the Roman gods had grown dumb, and 
refused to repeat the oracles. 

Milton describes the fact thus : — 

"The oracles are dumb; 

No voice or hideous hum 
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. 

Apollo from his shrine 

Can no more divine, 
With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. 
No trance or breathed spell 
Inspired the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. 

"The lonely mountains o'er, 

And the resounding shore, 
A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; 

From haunted spring and dale, 

Edged with poplar pale, 
The parting genius is with sighing sent; 
With flower-inwoven tresses torn, 
The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thicket mourn. 

"In consecrated earth, 

And on the holy hearth, 
The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint : 

In urns and altars round, 

A drear and dying sound 
Affrights the flamens at their service quaint; 
And the chill marble seems to sweat, 
While each peculiar Power foregoes his wonted seat." 



MANIFESTATION. 373 

tars that had been thronged were deserted. The great 
Jupiter, the brilliant Apollo, the great forger of thun- 
derbolts, and the daring ruler of the sea, were stricken 
as if by fatal paralysis. Heathen philosophers became 
Christian bishops.* Heathen priests gave place to 
Christian presbyters. Christian orators preached 
Christ where heathen orators had advocated the claims 
of state and client. 

The Jewish theocracy, though u festooned with the 
garlands of centuries," struggled in vain against the 
mighty child born in its midst. Gross and earth- 
bound materialists, even, were everywhere loosened 
from their original hold, and lifted towards heaven. 

The providence of God seemed to wake up and 
work manfully in favor of the new system, whether 
it were true or false. The kingdom of Christ is, in 
fact, historically the kingdom of God. The course of 
events has been bearing as strong testimony for Jesus 
as did his chosen disciples. 

The storms which rocked Rome nursed Christianity 
into greatness. The wars of Carthage, the victories 
of Hannibal, the triumphs of Scipio, Paulus, Marius, 
Sylla, Pompey, and Caesar, the fall of Greece and 
Syria, Egypt, Spain, Gaul, and Britain, appear to have 
taken place with special reference to the new reli- 
gion,-)* and that, too, in its favor. 

Nature, likewise, has been Christ's priest, and all her 

* "The friends of Christianity," says Gibbon, " may ac- 
knowledge without ablush, that many of the most eminent 
saints had been, before their baptism, the most abandoned 
sinners." 

t Birks. 



374 GOD-MAN. 

forces are his forces. Science, too, is an ally. How 
often it is repeated, and correctly, that lightnings in 
the sky or on the wire, and steam on land or sea, have 
pledged their support and effort ! Christendom, from 
first to last, and almost in every point of view, is a 
standing miracle. 

Are facts demanded to substantiate these various 
statements? They are at hand. 

Christianity in less than a century entered Syria, 
Libya, Egypt, Arabia, Persia, Mesopotamia, Armenia, 
Parthia, the whole of Asia Minor, and no small part 
of Europe. 

Three centuries had not passed away before Chris- 
tians were enabled to say to pagans, u We fill your 
cities, your armies, — we are everywhere." 

In four centuries it had pervaded the civilized world ; 
it sat upon the throne of the Caesars ; it had spread 
beyond the limits of Rome's political influence, had 
made inroads upon barbarian nations whom her eagles 
had never visited, had taken captive the northern hordes 
which poured down from the Alps to conquer the 
worn-out civilization of the empire, and " had gathered 
all genius and learning into itself, and made the litera- 
ture of the world its own." 

Before six centuries had gone by, it entered the 
savage forests of Germany and the farther north, trav- 
ersed gloomy hills, and still more gloomy valleys, con- 
verted the warriors of Odin into Christian missionaries, 
found its way into Britain and Ireland, demolished 
their bloody altars, thrilled their oak groves with songs 
of praise and peace, everywhere taming wild nations, 
and converting to its faith the world's conquerors. 



MANIFESTATION. 



375 



44 Kings, when their day of toil was over, laid down 
crown and sword, and retired into cloisters, to pass 
what remained of life in prayers and meditations on 
eternity. The supreme object of reverence was no 
longer the hero of the battle-field, but the barefoot mis- 
sionary, who was carrying the gospel among the tribes 
that were still untaught. So beautiful in their concep- 
tion of him was the character of one of these wandering 
priests, that their stories formed a new mythology." * 

Christianity has often, since those early times, it is 
true, had to contest its advance step by step, almost 
inch by inch. It has withstood much at many points. 
It withstood the attempted eclectic revival of pagan- 
ism, which imported to Rome the mysteries, the wor- 
ship, rituals, and rites of all known religions, clothing 
them with every possible fascination ; but all to no pur- 
pose. Combined they were no match or equivalent. 

It survived a second age of barbarism. It survived 
an age when " kings warred to the death with popes," 
and 44 popes struggled to put their feet upon the necks 
of kings." 

It survived an age worse than barbarism, when 
Christendom was no longer Christian, when priests 
were atheists, and laughed at their own services, as the 
heathen priests, more than a thousand years before, had 
trifled during their most solemn rites. 

It survived the revival of a literature worse than 
heathen,! and an age when popes speculated upon the 
financial profitableness of the fable of Jesus Christ, 

* Froude. 

t For evidence, see the writings of Delia Casa, Bandello, 
Bibbiena. Pomponatus, and Poggio. 



376 GOD-MAN. 

and led lives too abandoned for history faithfully to 
record.* 

It survived the period of reaction, and the break-up 
of beliefs which was inaugurated by the u vindictive 
thunder of Martin Luther," but which resulted in the 
license of personal judgment. That age of fc6 the tri- 
fling head and the corrupted heart/' represented in Eng- 
land by Hobbes, in Holland by Spinoza, in France by 
Bayle, tested Christianity at well nigh every point. It 
was indeed a dark hour. 

U I beheld religion," says Cave, in his Primitive 
Christianity, u generally laid waste, and Christianity 
ready to draw its last breath, stifled and oppressed 
with the vice and impiety of a debauched and profli- 
gate age." 

But the Christian system, as if clad in the splendid 
form and power of truth, emerged from that sea of 
darkness, and crowned again the hills and graced the 
valleys of the world with its cheerful and marvellous 
light! 

It flourished after the restoration of letters had been 
fully completed. And in that country, especially, where 

* The character and practices of Clement V. and Boniface 
VIII., Urban VI., John XXIII., Leo X., Alexander VI., Sex- 
tusIV., and Innocent VIII., furnish sufficient evidence of the 
above statement. 

t How suggestive is the remark of Goethe in this connec- 
tion ! — 

"The greatest honor is due to Christianity, for continually 
proving its pure and noble origin by coming forth again, af- 
ter the great aberrations into which human perversity has led 
it, more speedily than was expected, with its primitive special 
charm . . . for the relief of human exigency." 



MANIFESTATION. 377 

literature ripened almost to perfection, it exerted its 
most marked and controlling influence, commanding 
universal respect, and everywhere faithfully respond- 
ing to the new or revived tests rigidly applied to it by 
scepticism. 

It also promptly met objection and argument of 
every sort whenever presented. 

From the sixteenth century to the most recent times, 
it has firmly maintained its sharply-contested ground 
in all the various fields of argument and criticism. 

Scientific giants have often hurled their mountains 
to crush it. Materialists, pantheists, atheists, French 
encyclopaedists, and rabble crowds of outlawed com- 
munists, have, at times, united their efforts to whelm 
it. But by the majesty of its inherent power, super- 
natural or natural, — - all the more supernatural if 
natural, — it has met their assaults ; nor by them has it 
been harmed in the least. All single or combined 
oppositions have but reacted against the authors of 
them. All that sceptics have accomplished since 
Christ came has not shaken or disturbed one single 
truth of Christianity as originally set forth by Jesus 
and his disciples. 

David Hume, while doubtless congratulating him- 
self upon the results of his personal efforts, confident- 
ly predicted the downfall of Christianity in the nine- 
teenth century. 

Voltaire asserted, with great self-assurance, that 
though it had taken twelve men to plant Christianity, 
his single arm should root it out. 

Thomas Paine boasted, in his coarse way, that he 
had cut down every tree in the garden of Paradise. 



37§ GOD-MAN. 

And Mr. Parker publicly declared that he would 
traverse New England in all directions, that his voice 
should be heard in city and village, and that unless 
there were something more in the popular theology 
than he dreamed of (the qualification was well put), 
he would demolish it, even to its foundations.* 

How often human strength betrays its consummate 
weakness ! Of what avail have been the puny hands 
of these men, stretched forth so resolutely for the pur- 
pose of arresting the progress of Christian faith? 
What have they accomplished? They might as well 
have contended, seemingly, against the advancement of 
the human race, or against the majestic providence of 
God. 

There are some things which cannot be arrested 
or resisted, and do not facts show that Christianity is 
among the number? 

Whenever the new or revived theories of distin- 
guished sceptics and infidels have been first published, 
they have appeared to be in a fair way of achieving 
much for the cause of error, and threatening indeed 
has been their aspect towards Christianity. But the 
results in every case have been strikingly uniform. 
They have glared for a time, then glimmered, and 
then, at length, have disappeared in the surrounding 
darkness. 

" Does not the history of all literature prove that 

* These threats remind us of the early centuries, when 
Diocletian and Galerius, thinking the last day of Christianity 
had come, symbolized it on their medals as a strangled hydra, 
with the haughty inscription, '*Deleta Christiana religione "' 
— The Christian religion is destroyed ! 



MANIFESTATION-. 379 

not even the brightest wit or the keenest genius, not 
even the stately eloquence of Bolingbroke, or the uni- 
versal learning of Diderot, or the glowing imagination 
of Byron, or the flashing witticisms of Voltaire, can 
save the writings of men, however gifted, from per- 
ishing of inevitable decay," if they are employed 
either against Christianity or its Author? 

The objections of such men as Celsus, Porphyry, 
Woolston, Voltaire, and Paine are no longer repeated 
by persons of refinement or intelligence. 

Hagenbach aptly characterizes this ridicule, once so 
dreaded by the friends of truth, as a school-boy's effort 
to excite u the cheap laughter of his associates by 
painting a mustache on some fine antique." 

The mythicism of Strauss, once eagerly accepted, 
is now discarded, especially in his own country. 

The Tubingen school, once so popular, is no more. 
The same may be said, with almost equal emphasis, 
of the rationalism of Paulus, the naturalism of 
other schools, and the legendary dreams of Renan. 
What next? 

But the Christian system has done more than merely 
to act upon the defensive. It has likewise, by reason 
of its progressive character, commanded the respect, 
if not the assent, of the greatest and best minds of all 
civilized lands. So important is it to the national and 
individual weal, that even those who reject the theory 
of its divine origin are convinced that the world can- 
not do without it.* 

* "While we enjoy the liberty [of thought and of science] 
as sons of God," says Renan, " let us beware of contributing 
to that weakening of virtue which would threaten society if 



380 GOD-MAN. 

It certainly cannot be denied that it has provided 
laws, customs, and morals for the great mass of the 
civilized world. Its symbol of salvation is every- 
where recognized, revered, and loved.* 

Christianity is to-day enlarging the fields of general 

the force of Christianity should be enfeebled. What should 
we be without it? Who shall replace such schools of seri- 
ousness and reverence as the St. Sulpice? such a ministry 
of self-abnegation as that of the Sisters of Charity? How 
can we avoid being terrified at that aridness of emotion 
and frivolity of aim which are at present overrunning the 
w r orld?" And again : "If Rationalism insists on governing 
the world without providing for the religious wants of man, 
the experience of the French revolution interposes to warn 
us against the consequences of an error so fatal." 

* "Nothing more signally illustrates the exterior triumph 
and historical success of the gospel," says an able Unitarian, 
4k than that reverend symbol, the cross, which — once ab- 
horred and accursed, an instrument of torture, a sign of 
guilt, and an emblem of shame — has become a glory, and a 
grace, and an idol of the world. Once forbidden within the 
fold of civil walls, and approached with horror and trem- 
bling through the 'execrable gates' of cities, it has come 
to flaunt on regal brows; it crowns the solemn temple; it 
flames in the battle's van ; it glitters on beauty's breast; it is 
curiously carved in wood and stone; it is framed of jewels 
and gold. In the centre of the Flavian amphitheatre in 
Rome, once the stronghold of polytheism, it occupies the 
ground where the followers of the Crucified were thrown to 
the lions, or transfixed with the sword. All who behold it 
revere and bless it." 

" Whatsoe'er 
The form of building, or the creed professed, 
The cross, bold type of shame, to homage turned, 
Of an unfinished life that sways the world, 
Shall tower as sovereign emblem over all." 



MANIFESTATION. 38 1 

intelligence, exercising controlling influence in all 
the relations of life, and — say what opponents may 
to the contrary — it furnishes the foundation for the 
most firmly-established, striking, -and benignant move- 
ments of modern times. 

Its present position among the nations is stronger 
evidence of its divinity than any which was possessed 
by the apostles, granting that everything reported was 
literally true. 

Christianity is found everywhere, not in hyperbole, 
but as fact. Each returning Sabbath, the sound of 
church bells, beginning in the far East, is heard, be- 
tween sun and sun, going round the globe. 

The world is advancing slowly, but surely and 
grandly ; and it is not extravagant to say that in this 
advance Christianity is, at every stage, more and more 
recognized as the significant, the culminating, dom- 
inant and all-determining fact of modern times. 

In this respect, the plummet is to be yet discovered 
which can sound the profound ab}*ss which yawns 
between Christianity and all other religions. " There 
is between Christianity and whatever other religions 
you please," says Napoleon, in one of his keen and 
comprehensive sentences, " the distance of infinity." * 

The present as well as the historic attitude of 
Christianity enables us likewise to speak prophetically. 
u The Christian religion, once here," says Carlyle, 
" cannot pass *away." It is of such a character, in 
other words, that there is no possible death for it, but 
rather perpetual life, while the world stands. 

* Appendix, V. 



382 GOD-MAN. 

We believe, with progressive men of every class, that 
the future is stored with grand events and discoveries ; 
but we just as confidently believe that they will shed 
all their light upon Christianity, disclosing more and 
more its transcendent claims and superiority.* When, 
therefore, reformers (?) talk of a progress , and a 
civilization, and of certain undefined " living inspira- 
tions," which are soon to supersede the u old theol- 
ogies," the u creeds outgrown" and u century-mossed 
systems " of Christian faith, we are indignant at one 
moment, but smile the next. 

" If the race has outgrown Christianity/' says 
Bayne, u let it solemnly put it away ; but the dignity 
of humanity requires that it be not shuffled aside." 

In the name of humanity, we have an unquestioned 
right to demand clearness on such a subject. But as 
yet has anything been furnished us save evasion and 
vagaries ? 

It is certainly not impertinent in us to demand rea- 
sons for deserting the established faith. But as yet 
has an adequate, or scarcely intelligent, or even intel- 
ligible reason been assigned? 

When opinions which have been held sacred for a 
thousand years are attacked, is not the attacking party 
to be the laboring party until at least the outer in- 
trenchments have been demolished? 

* The world can see to-day as never before what a misfor- 
tune to historic Christianity has been every attempt to stifle 
free inquiry. All investigations, be they in the fields of 
philosophy, natural or philological science, or any other, 
have but gathered corroborating data, which, after a little 
time, have been laid, reluctantly or willingly, at the foot of 
the cross. 



MANIFESTATION. 3S3 

But has the attacking party, in the case in question, 
done anything except merely to intrench themselves 
in some indefinite and distant negations, and then to 
assert that the victory is won, and that Christianity is 
dead ? 

We beg pardon, but, if we are not mistaken, the 
world is not yet sufficiently advanced to fully appre- 
ciate the very singular attitude of most of those who 
have of late attempted to " shuffle aside " and " hush 
up" the grand truths of our religious faith. 

There has been quite too much of this fine talk, and 
it has been talked by far too many years, and too little 
good fruit has come of it, for men to surrender the 
" old system" in favor of the wise notions of these 
teachers and writers, who, by implication, claim to be 
so far in advance of all others. 

The meaning of assumption and presumption, — 
has it been known until of late ? 

We speak the mind of the Christian church, when 
we say to all these " advanced thinkers," so called, 
that Christianity is not in the least alarmed. " The 
burning of a little straw may hide the stars of the 
sky, but the stars are there, and will reappear." 

The reader of history has seen so much of this 
straw-burning enterprise, first and last, that it has 
come to be to him a sort of pastime. Fires made up 
of such materials do not last, only as constantly re- 
newed. 

Ecclesiastical history tells us, as we have already 
seen, that when Christianity was in its infancy, men 
from the East, subtle and metaphysical, men from 
Africa, strong-minded and philosophical, together 



384 GOD-MAN. 

with imaginative Greeks, practical Romans, and 
zealous Jews, endeavored to smother the system ; but 
it likewise informs us that they signally failed in their 
efforts. And it also tells us, in the sequel, to fear not 
the efforts of less able opponents, especially now that 
Christianity is in its vigorous manhood. 

We have every reason to believe that Philo, who 
was well provided with " shafts of profane wit ; " 
that Porphyry, who abounded in sophistry, and who 
was rich in stores of learning, though thoroughly ma- 
terialistic ; and Hierocles, who was an artist of re- 
markable inventive resources, and whose talents were 
consecrated to a pagan imitation of Christian truth, — 
were just as able opponents of Christianity as the 
ablest of these men whom the nineteenth century has 
produced. 

The outcome is inevitable, and will show that 
weaker men relatively will not succeed, where 
stronger men have alw r ays failed. 

But there are other considerations than those grow- 
ing out of history which inspire confidence in the per- 
manency of Christianity. There are certain immutable 
elements in Christian faith, as there are in nature, 
which never have changed, and never can change, and 
which will never outgrow the passions and loves of 
the human soul. The beauty of a mild sunset, the 
sublimity of a midnight heaven, the dazzle of light- 
nings playing across the sky, the repose and beauty of 
a lily clad in raiment surpassing that of any present or 
future Solomon in all his glory, will not be outgrown, 
though society should exist in a state of constant prog- 
ress for ten thousand years. 



MANIFESTATION. 385 

The beautiful, true, and good are no older to-day 
than in Plato's time ; they are eternal, and fade not. 
The complexion of eternal and essential things never 
changes, and their youth is never lost. 

It is in harmony with this principle, that any mind 
truly philosophical can confidently assert that a system 
so thoroughly adapted to mankind as is Christianity ; a 
system which stands out as a kind of " spiritual high- 
land " and headland for the human race ; a system 
which, the more it is studied and experienced, is the 
more highly prized, whose path is always the path of 
peace, knowledge, elevation, emancipation, and salva- 
tion ; a system " various in manner, profoundly in har- 
mony with the elementary conscience of the world ; 
flexible in its circumstantials, while most inflexible in 
its essence ; full of strength for the weak, of consola- 
tion for the sorrowful, of hope for the discouraged, 
of stimulus for the sluggish, of support for just author- 
ity, of defence for the defenceless, of authority for the 
many, of terror for the bad, of reward for the good, 
of pardon for the penitent ; " a system which can 
satisfy all the desires that philosophy or human want 
awaken, which can enter all dark places and leave 
them full of light by conquering despair and institut- 
ing its wonderful miracles of renovation ; a system 
that can convert dens of thieves into bethels of the 
Holy Ghost, and which can cast out its legion of devils, 
and say to crime-stained wretches, whose brains have 
been in a perpetual " craze," and whose hearts have 
been u filled with all sorts of villanies," " Peace, be 
still ; " a system which can stand by the bedside of the 
dying, quell every misgiving, wipe away the death 
25 



386 GOD-MAN. 

sweat, and leave the brow calm and serene as heaven, 
— yes, a system which can perfect the individual, bless 
the family, correct and purify society, and civilize the 
world ; which can, in fine, do everything it promises 
to do, and promises to do everything essential to hu- 
man happiness, here and hereafter, — such a system 
has the unencumbered guarantee of all times. Its 
foundations are impregnable. Its fortified home is in 
the wants and depths of human souls. And human 
nature, in its better moments and conditions, will sup- 
port and endow it, even with her last dollar and her 
last strength. 

Christianity is not, therefore, a " cherished prejudice 
of past ages." It stands not in the breath of a given 
generation. It is independent of accidents, incidents, 
coincidents, anything, indeed, historic, artificial, and 
transitory. It will witness the consummation of human 
history and the end of earthly dispensations. It may 
be obscured for a moment, but extinguished never. 
It may pause for an hour in its advance, but not from 
exhaustion. 

Nothing in the universe, save the perversity, sover- 
eignty, and doubt of human hearts, with which it has 
to deal and contend, is able to prevent for a single 
day a conquest final and universal. But this even 
does not affect its ultimate security and success. 

They are independent of man's perversity. Its un- 
assailable bulwarks are also in the power and provi- 
dence of God. It lives, and always has lived, in the 
divine favor. Had it been otherwise, it had been 
bound to the stake with the early martyrs, expired 
in their ashes, and " had been intombed in the sep- 



MANIFESTATION. 387 

ulchre of her first and last apostles." But " all true 
work, hang the author of it on what gibbet you like, 
must and will accomplish itself." Christianity is a 
" true work ; " nothing is truer. The immutable laws 
of God conspire in its favor. The hot tramp of all 
mighty results is but increasing its visible protections, 
and announce that this system is original, eternal, ab- 
solute and final.* 

* It is easy to substantiate the strong statements here 
made, not from the " rhetorical flourishes of young orthodox 
divines," but both from outsiders and from opposers in their 
better moments and clearer sight. 

"The Christian religion once here," says Carlyle, "can- 
not pass away; in one or the other form it will endure 
through all time ; as in Scripture, so also in the heart of 
man is written, 'The gates of hell shall not prevail against 
it.' Were the memory of this faith never so obscured, — as, 
indeed, in all times the coarse passions and perceptions of 
the world do all but obliterate it in the hearts of most, — yet 
in every pure soul, in every poet and wise man, it finds a new 
missionary, a new martyr, till the great volume of universal 
history is finally closed, and man's destinies are fulfilled in 
this earth. It is a height to which the human species were 
fated and enabled to attain, and from which, having once 
attained it, they can never retrograde." 

Mr. Parker, speaking of Christianity as Christ announced 
it, says, "Its lofty summit far transcends the tumult, knows 
nothing of the storm which roars below, but burns with rosy 
light at evening and at morn, gleams in the splendors of the 
midday sun, sees his light when the long shadows creep over 
plain and moorland, and all night long has its head in the 
heavens, and is visited by troops of stars which never set, 
nor veil their face to aught so pure and high." 

"Some think," said Coquerel while in America, "that 
progress shall eventually destroy and replace Christianity. 



388 GOD-MAN. 

Such is the Christian religion. Its history, nature, 
and security are decisive. Men do not gather grapes 
from thorns, or figs from thistles. The definite source 
of this grand system of truth is the soul of that unlet- 
tered mechanic (?) from a despised quarter of a de- 
spised land. 

If any question in science or metaphysics demands 
patient investigation and answer, is it not the one long 
ago asked, intensely emphatic then, still more so now 
— " Whence hath this man these things ? " 

We change slightly the form of the question, retain- 
ing the spirit, and adapting it to modern thought. 
If the mind of God, with no mental force left out, had 
really constituted the personal identity of Christ Jesus, 
and if God had desired to leave to the world a monu- 
ment of that fact which would be both suitable and 
sublime, could he have devised anything, in the un- 
prejudiced and enlightened judgment of men, more 
satisfactory than the Christian faith and the Christian 
religion ? 

This is a deep error, has great consequences, and we in every 
country have suffered greatly from that ignorance. " 

" Let the human mind be expanded as much as it please," 
says Goethe, ' k it will never transcend the height and moral- 
ity of Christianity as it shines in the gospel." 



VIII. 

EPILOGUE. 



IT is Shakespeare, if we mistake not, who makes 
one of the conditions of a good drama that it need 
no epilogue. Perhaps the principle applies to all sub- 
jects. If so, a faultless treatment of the divine theme 
will never be accomplished. Every writer venturing 
to treat it will need his epilogue — a sort of indirect 
apology, an effort in a few concluding words to con- 
centrate, as in a lens, the otherwise scattered rays, and 
from the various sources bring them to bear directly 
upon some single point of the all-comprehensive sub- 
ject. 

Were it in one's power to do more than this, — even 
to bring to view and into clear light a perfect portrait 
of our Lord, having for its background the desires of 
humanity, their search, their attempts to realize the 
ideal, also the historic accounts, together with the 
opinions and convictions of eighteen hundred years, — 
no other or greater blessedness could be asked. 

On the other hand, for one to profess to have done 
this would be but to do the greatest possible violence 

389 



39° GOD-MAN. 

to that instinctive feeling in the heart of every true be- 
liever, which tells him that all human words and rep- 
resentations are only relative and finite, while any 
phase of the life and character of Jesus the Christ has 
connections which are absolute and infinite. 

Well did the great painter, Leonardo da Vinci, when 
he had placed on the canvas, in his painting of the 
Last Supper, the portraits of the Twelve, pause be- 
fore that of the Master, nor scarcely venture a stroke 
of his skilful pencil. 

How admirable, too, the sense of propriety in that 
finished artist, Albert Durer, who, in his painting of 
the Man of Sorrows, represented the head as turned 
away, thus hiding a face he felt he could not delineate ! 

How faultless, likewise, especially in a purely rhe- 
torical light, and more especially to an Oriental mind, 
the epilogue of St. John's Gospel ! 

This apostle, be it remembered, had the grandest, 
even the most august conception possible of the mag- 
nitude of Christ's life and deeds. When, therefore, he 
desired to express the fact that the gospel records con- 
tained but a few scattered leaves of that great biogra- 
phy, which, in its more important relations, is infinite, 
was not the language not only allowable under the cir- 
cumstances, but also elegant and graceful, if not verily 
indispensable, even in an inspired writer, when say- 
ing, u And there are also many other things which 
Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every 
one, I suppose that even the world itself could not 
contain [comprehend] the books that should be writ- 
ten. Amen." 

Without attempting more than did Durer, and con- 



MANIFESTATION. • 39 1 

fessing with the apostle that but a trifle of the whole 
has been said, we may seek at least to deepen a few 
impressions already familiar to all. 

yesus of Nazareth is a Teacher. We say 'is\ rather 
than was, because he is more of a teacher to-day than 
ever before. 

Granting that he was the Christ of God, — which 
must be allowed in order to keep truth upon his side, 
and also to save his teachings, from being stigmatized 
as essentially defective, — then he was the most remark- 
able teacher that has ever appeared among men. 

No other has been so revolutionary as he. His pro- 
fessed design was to transform the individual, the fami- 
ly, and society ; * and this, too, at a time and among a 
people when the inauguration of change meant death. 

This Jewish people were intrenched in a long and 
splendid national history, which included the adven- 
tures of Abraham, when he abandoned the gods of 
his fathers in Ur of the Chaldees, also the era of pa- 
triarchs, the deliverance under Moses, the times when 
Joshua, with uplifted spear, bade the sun stand still, the 
conquests of David, the grandeur of the reign of Solo- 
mon, the splendid priesthood of Samuel, and the sub- 
lime triumphs of Elijah, likewise much else that filled 
the national heart with patriotic pride. For one to 
deviate in the least from any of these facts or traditions, 
was revolutionary or blasphemous, and was punisha- 
ble with death. 

When that obscure youth, in the face of all this array 
of historic prestige, inaugurates publicly a wholesale 
modification, nay, when he strikes blow after blow 

* Matt.x. 34-36. 



39 3 • GOD-MAN. 

directly into the heart of things held by all as revered 
and sacred, must we not regard him as the very em- 
bodiment of revolution and rebellion? Should we 
longer wonder that he so frequently threw the utmost 
confusion and consternation in among the great teach- 
ers of his nation ? The boldness of his policy, and the 
terror of his denunciations against civil and religious 
magistrates, do they find anywhere in history a par- 
allel? 

Yet his proposed changes meant, not anarchy or 
moral license, but always reform and purity. He 
sought the weal, not the woe, of society. There is no- 
where the slightest laxity in morals, or any departure 
from the highest civil obligations. Caesar's require- 
ments were faithfully discharged by him. He did not 
allow that an impure thought could be cherished with- 
out sin. An aimless word must not be spoken. He 
enjoined upon all men nothing short of heroic truthful- 
ness and entire consecration to virtue and to God. 

And he arrayed moral and religious laws into such 
new and marvellous combinations, that men who had 
gone to sleep under formalities, finding themselves 
suddenly shaken by the arm, woke up, and looked upon 
a new sunrise in a new world. He surprised and as- 
tonished men at every turn. Nay, more ; do not his 
ideas and expressions continue to thrill with supreme 
admiration us even, upon whom the ends of the earth, 
with all their culture and refinement, have come ? 

And what is no less remarkable, Jesus appears at 
all times to hold much more in reserve than is ex- 
pressed. The most august composure which cannot 
exist without conscious strength unexpended, almost 



.MANIFESTATION. 393 

untried, seemed ever to attend him. This certainly is 
quite unlike the elation and inordinate excitement 
which always characterize those who are thronged by 
such diverse crowds of people. He was as composed 
before vast multitudes of all classes, and even when 
confronting the passions of angry men, as if " twelve 
legion of angels" awaited his command. 

Upon strictly rhetorical grounds it may also be said 
that the eloquence of suspended or reserve power, both 
in word and action, has never found such illustration 
as with Jesus. He had many things to say to his dis- 
ciples, but was often silent. He forbade his friends to 
disclose the miracles wrought.* He always waited 
for the moment of inevitable and irresistible conviction 
to come. He delayed until the nation was aroused, 
and Jerusalem crowded, and then, in that moment of 
tremendous climax, he made his public announcement, 
and told Pilate who he was. 

Again, Jesus, as a teacher, was not modest, as the 
term is employed among men, nor yet vain. 

Moses, Zoroaster, Socrates, Plato, and even Moham- 
med were modest ; they put themselves in the back- 
ground ; never represented themselves as perfect ex- 
amples, and spoke, upon personal admission, the 
words of others, not their own.f 

We may safely say that it is usually the case that 

** Matt. ix. 30, xii. 16, xvi. 20, xvii. 9; Mark iii. 2, viii, 30, 
ix. 9; Luke ix. 21. 

t The modesty of Confucius is characteristic of this class 
of men. " The sage," he says, " and the man of perfect vir- 
tue — how dare I rank myself with them? The character of 
a perfect man, carrying out in his conduct what he professes, 
is what I have not yet attained to." 



394 GOD-MAN. 

those minds which have influenced public thought 
most, throughout history, have confessed much less for 
themselves than their modern admirers have confessed 
for them. They always wavered in uncertainty, and 
were ever desiring some absolute and authentic reve- 
lation, which they confessed they could not discover. 

But Jesus never acknowledged ignorance ; he had no 
misgivings, was never embarrassed, or offered apolo- 
gy. He was bold, original, and independent ; and in 
that memorable sentence, ".Ye have heard that it hath 
been said, . . . but I say unto you," several times 
repeated and emphasized, he arrayed himself against 
the whole world. 

And yet, on that occasion, even, there is not left 
upon the mind of any unprejudiced person the least 
impression or thought of vanity in Jesus. The lan- 
guage is unobjectionable — may we not say it? — only 
because from his lips. Notwithstanding he was thus 
fearless of nothing, and though his attention was often 
called suddenly, and, in a human point of view, unex- 
pectedly, to consider the most difficult and perplexing 
matters, yet he was always equal to the emergency, 
nor was he ever coarse or trivial. 

His wisdom was sufficiently deep, his insight suffi- 
ciently penetrating, his courage sufficiently daring, his 
tenderness sufficiently winning, to enable him to give 
an absolutely faultless answer to the question pro- 
pounded. 

He possessed such severity when deserved, so great 
pity when in presence of human evil, want, and sorrow, 
such plainness and delicacy, grandeur and gentleness, 
such love, patience, purity, perfection, and majesty, 



MANIFESTATION. 395 

and all these qualities were so admirably blended, that 
the world has long since ceased to look for their like. 

It is no longer doubted, except by a few eccentric 
persons, that Jesus was absolute master of all occasions, 
and of all circumstances. He was ready upon any topic, 
and prepared at a moment's warning, to command to 
his assistance the vine trailing along the lattice, or the 
lightning playing in the sky ; men at their ordinary 
occupations in the city, and in the field, came at his 
bidding to do him service ; in fine, gold and stubble, 
silks and rubbish, under his mastership, possessed 
about equal value ; and the value of each, when he 
touched it, rose beyond estimate. 

The falling of a sparrow and the clothing of a lily 
are henceforth sacred. He alone, of all teachers, 
knew the exact meaning of nature's symbols, and he 
alone could uniformly employ them in faultless pro- 
priety. He converted the most ordinary prose, even 
that which men had cast aside as threadbare, into the 
most charming, graceful, and wonderful poetry. He 
employed no figure of speech, even on the spur of the 
moment, which could offend the most fastidious taste. 
He never employed a useless word, and never, in all 
his life, was betrayed into trivial disputations. 

And though he discoursed upon the profoundest 
themes which have ever engaged men's thought, it 
should also be observed that he adapted every expres- 
sion to all classes. 

Consider this thought for a moment. He taught 
more and better religious truth during a ministry of 
three years, than all who had preceded him ; so ex- 
haustive was he in the treatment of his subjects, that 



396 GOD-MAN. 

the world's morality and theology no longer constitute 
progressive sciences ; men are henceforth to expound 
and modify existing formula, but can advance not one 
step beyond the revelations he made. 

It is a dictate of philosophy, too, that " all the 
ways of culture and greatness lead to solitary imprison- 
ment." How securely imprisoned, then, must Jesus 
have been ! But for some reason, himself and his 
words are within the reach of all who listen. Lis- 
tening and possessing a willing heart are the only con- 
ditions ; to those who fulfil these, Jesus is the most 
social being that has walked the earth. 

He was, and is, at every such man's fireside, speak- 
ing to him the voice of ages ; he is instantly under- 
stood, because himself is what he says ; he is none 
other than Very Word. Such was his convincing 
and mighty way of talking to men ! His eloquence, — 
almost the only example of native eloquence the world 
has seen, — though eminently persuasive and thrilling, 
was never rhetorical or emotional. He spoke : the 
world is listening to-day, because his sentiments were 
the embodiment of sublime simplicity, full of charm 
and power, and as free from vagaries and abstractions, 
scholasticism and technicalities, as the blush of June, 
or the golden drapery of an October morning, < — 

" Which they may read who bind the sheaf, 
Or build the house, or dig the grave, 
Or those wild eyes which watch the wave 
In roarings round the coral reef." 

But it is still more remarkable that Jesus seldom 
reasoned — in the strict sense, perhaps never. It was 



MANIFESTATION. 397 

with him yea, yea, and nay, nay, respecting those great 
truths upon which there had been among men the pro- 
foundest reasoning. 

Human obligations, the soul's immortality, the res- 
urrection from the dead, the final judgment, heaven 
and hell, were truths announced by him, but were 
never reasoned upon, or argued, as Socrates would 
have argued them. Jesus was always imperative ; Soc- 
rates never was. " Therefore " was not usually with 
him the conclusion of a syllogism, but the introduction 
of a revelation. 

And yet Jesus was never in doubt. Nor is it singu- 
lar, upon second thought, that these two elements 
should be combined. A man reasons when in doubt ; 
reasons that, step by step, he may reach correct con- 
clusions. Jesus knew; his ideas of those grand sub- 
jects, and of all others, were pure and perfect ; he had 
seen — therefore a process of reasoning would, in his 
own mind, be out of place. 

It is in harmony with this, that he propounded no 
systems and no theories — he announced. This posi- 
tiveness, however, was not presumption. Men, it is 
true, cannot test by any mathematical rule all he said, 
because much of it is beyond their reach. But so far 
as humanity can go, he never contradicts its better 
judgment. 

He is acknowledged, for instance, to be the world's 
only absolutely correct master of moral principles, 
without the slightest admixture of error. He can, 
likewise, be authenticated in other fields. He an 
nounced, as all admit, sharper and profounder judg- 
ments respecting the ordinary affairs of this world, 



398 GOD-MAN. 

than all teachers who had preceded him ; his succes- 
sors have been but repeaters. 

Other teachers had talked about light, and sought it. 
Jesus brought it. They guessed, often guessed well. 
He settled their questions by assertion, and converted 
their negatives into positives. 

They taught after investigation, he by inspiration. 
They were disputers, he was a revealer. His words 
are so positive, and appeal so directly to the con- 
science, almost to the consciousness of men, that they 
appear like God's revelations to human hearts. The 
truths he uttered appear like emanations from infinite 
wisdom and truth. They disclose what is in God's 
mind. Every charming landscape, God's handwrit- 
ing, seems of the kindred of Jesus. No wonder that 
the most beautiful objects in nature fell from his lips 
so gracefully ; they could not help it. He and they 
are equally expressions of the infinite ; the one a 
revelation in nature, the other a revelation in " the 
flesh." Yet he is more. Nature always yields to his 
presence. She is another John the Baptist. She 
stoops before him, and then hesitates even to loosen his 
shoe-latchets, saying, " This was he of whom I spake ; 
he that cometh after me is preferred before me, for 
he was before me." 

" Jesus taught," as Butler says, " with a degree of 
light to which that of nature is darkness." Lux post 
nubila. Such is God's method. Shadows do not last. 
Light after shadows, " Must not every thinking 
man," as John Locke remarks, " conclude respecting 
Jesus, with Nicodemus, We know that thou art a 
teacher come from God ? " 



MANIFESTATION, 399 

Nay, more ; if God had literally been in Christ, 
can we imagine that he would have announced to 
the world more than he did ? * 

Jesus is an Example. But we need, at this point, 
the same qualification as that before stated. His ex- 
ample, if he were merely human, is defective. He is 
an example incidentally, not essentially. His essen- 

* It is a fair question to ask, though this is not the place 
to fully discuss it, How did Jesus come in possession of all 
this wisdom? 

Not by borrowing. Even Renan confesses that Jesus " did 
not even know the name of Buddha, Zoroaster, or Plato; he 
had read no Greek book, no Buddhist soutra." 

Not by being taught. He was neither self-taught, em- 
ploying the term technically, nor trained in any school. 

Not because he owed anything to his condition in life. 
He was what he was in spite of his humble family, in spite 
of the obscure province in which he was born, and in spite 
of the despised nationality to which he belonged. 

It is poetic to say that it had been less fortunate for Jesus 
to have been born in the house of a Roman senator. Such 
statements are poetry, not fact, save that the prophecies had 
not then been fulfilled. His character and teachings clearly 
show that he would have been an exceptional being any- 
where, in any age, and that certainly outward favor could 
not have hindered him. 

It is also said that " civilization is debtor to lowly cra- 
dles," and that "unknown mothers hold a heavy account 
against the world." This is true, beyond question. But it is 
far from true that the unparalleled greatness of Jesus de- 
pended upon his cradle, or his mother. It was Plato who 
said, " We shall never have perfect men until we surround 
them with perfect circumstances." There is truth in this, 
as well as in the opposite expressions. Yet poor, rude, and 
illiterate were they of Christ's native village; and he was a 
mechanic. In fine, his teachings, and the outward condition 
of his life, are absolutely and forever irreconcilable. 



4-00 GOD-MAN. 

tial life work was the redemption of the race, not by 
the example of his life, but by his death. This ad- 
mitted, he appears no less remarkable as an example 
than as a teacher. In that brief period of three years 
of middle life, he has given data sufficient to form 
rules for the government of all times, all ages, and all 
affairs of men. 

No element belonging to the nobility of human life 
fails of illustration. It is an emphatic statement that 
he practised before he taught. " Jesus began to do 
and to teach," is the historic representation. This 
was not usual with his contemporaries. There had 
been talk enough, but something to be seen was 
wanted. " Who ever regarded his philosophy," says 
Cicero, " as a law and rule of life, and not rather as 
an ostentation of his ability and learning? Who ever 
obeyed his own instructions, and made his precepts 
the model of his own daily practice ? " But Jesus 
always " lived out his word, and spake out his life." 

He fulfilled the sublime maxim of Kant, " So act 
that your principle of action would bear to be made a ' 
law for the whole world." 

We are aware that it is claimed that Jesus faltered 
in the garden, and betrayed weakness on the cross. 
And yet his whole life, aside from this occasion of his 
Passion, showed that he would have likewise tri- 
umphed heroically in those moments, had not his hu- 
manity been disturbed by relations to God's justice 
and human guilt, which have pressed in such manner 
upon the soul of no other mortal. 

That Jesus should tremble, nay, be appalled, in 
those moments of agony, is in perfect harmony with 



MANIFESTATION. 4OI 

his humanity and his deity, also with the startling 
supposition upon which his mission rested. If he is 
a vicarious sacrifice, it were fitting that his head 
should bow, both in the garden and on the cross ; 
if he were not such, then no longer is his life a model. 

But aside from these supposed exceptions, his life 
presents a clear margin. He fulfilled, at every point, 
the severest conditions. Were the race called upon 
to contribute one who is able to answer all the de- 
mands of a faultless example, could it do anything 
except point to Jesus? All the qualifications which 
enter into human conceptions of a universal ideal em- 
body themselves in him. No nation, no period, no 
degree of culture, no -condition in life, however ad- 
vanced through the grand steps of civilization, or the 
new and curious speculations in modern science, is 
without its example and model.* 

To the medieval knights he was the model of 
chivalry ; to the monk he was the " pattern of all as- 
cetism ; " and to Napoleon he was the grand man, 
" between Him and whomever else in the world there 
is no possible term of comparison." To Strauss 
Jesus was a w T ise Rabbi ; to Schenkel, u the repre- 
sentative of political and theological progress ; " to 
Renan, " a moral teacher ; " and to Lequinia, the 
French atheist, he was a faultless pattern of virtue, 
wisdom, and patience. f To Fenelon he was " the 

* For the accompanying citations we are largely indebted 
to F. W. Farrar. 

f " He always displayed virtue ; he always spoke according 
to the dictates of reason ; he always preached up wisdom ; 
he sincerely loved all men, and wished to do good, even to 

26 



4-OZ GOD-MAN. 

most rapt of mystics ; " to Vincent de Paul, "the 
most practical of philanthropists ; " to Decker, " the 
first true gentleman that ever breathed ; " to Miiller, 
" the explanation of all history ; " and to Emerson, 
the propounder of his own system of personal -pan- 
theism.* To the Unitarian he is the unexceptiona- 
ble, and greater than all.f What " splendid person- 

his persecutors; he developed all the principles of moral 
equality, and of the purest patriotism ; he met danger undis- 
mayed ; he described the hard-heartedness of the rich ; he 
attacked the pride of kings ; he dared to resist even in the 
face of tyrants ; he despised glory and fortune ; he was sober ; 
he solaced the indigent; he taught the unfortunate how to 
suffer; he sustained weakness ; he fortified decay; he con- 
soled misfortunes ; he knew how to shed tears with those 
that wept; he taught men to subjugate their passions, to 
think, to reflect, to love one another, and to live happily 
together. He was hated by the powerful, whom he offended 
by his teaching, and persecuted by the wicked, whom he 
unmasked; and he died under the indignation of that blind 
and deceived multitude, for whose good he had always lived." 

— Lequinia. 

* " Jesus Christ," says Emerson, "belonged to the true race 
of prophets. He saw with an open eye the mystery of the 
soul. One man was true to what is in you and me. He 
said, in this jubilee of divine emotion, ' I am divine. Through 
me God acts ; through me he speaks ' " 

t " I have come down, let us suppose, to the Christian 
era," says an able representative, " and I open the Christian 
records. I know what has gone before. I have seen one era 
of progress opening upon another, and have observed that 
noticeable order of things by which, at the head of all these 
eras, have stood great and shining men to preside over them 

— Confucius, Menu, Zoroaster, Abraham, Moses, and Soc- 
rates. I know all these men; I have studied their life; I 
have studied their character; I have studied their words. 






MANIFESTATION. 403 

ality" must this be which is fitted to attract forever 
the human soul ! which wears not out in one lifetime, 
nor in a world's time. He is, indeed, Homo Hom- 
inum, the man of men, the universal man, humanity's 
ideal. Is he not the first and last?* 

jfesus is a Miracle Worker. Witness those mir- 
acles of absolute control, in which the sea became a 
pavement, and the tempest a child of obedience ; 
those, also, of creative power, when he who had no 
storehouse, or grain-field, gave food to multitudes ; 
and those miracles of healing the sick, and raising the 
dead, and raising himself — startling thought, a per- 
son raising himself from the dead! 

Were not the elements of nature, and all things else, 
u in his hands plastic as wax"? Is he not, upon nat- 
ural grounds, an incomprehensible, though incontro- 
vertible fact? 

" But how inevitably and how inexpressibly should I feel, on 
reading the life and teaching of Jesus, that here was a new 
thing in the world, — something far in advance of all that 
had appeared before! I am not anxious to separate this ex- 
cellence from all other; I only say, that it is above all. 
Simply as an impartial student of history, and of human 
nature, I say, 'This is greatest ! this is the greatest that has 
ever appeared among men.' " 

* To these maybe added the requirement of Plato: "To 
prove a man heartily righteous, he must be scourged, bound, 
have his two eyes put out, and in the close, having suffered 
all evils, must be crucified." How strikingly are these con- 
ditions fulfilled in the life of Jesus ! And here was another 
condition of this same philosopher, equally well fulfilled : 
"with inspired lips speaking things simple, and unperfumed, 
and unadorned, which reaches over ten thousand years be- 
cause of God." Also might be added Cicero's ideal descrip- 
tion of a perfect ruler. 



404 GOD-MAN. 

Is it longer occasion of wonder that his " very 
infancy not only startled a king, and made him fear 
for his throne, but also affrighted the powers of dark- 
ness, and silenced the heathen oracles"? Is it sur- 
prising, that his " childhood puzzled the knowledge 
of the aged, and confounded the doctors of the law " ? 

And should it trouble us when told that the Spirit 
of God, which brooded over the waters and infant 
Qarth, implanting in its bosom the seeds of that life 
and beauty which now gladden the eye with tree, 
leaf, and blossom, and which also inspires every 
divine thought in human hearts, begetting the divine 
life in the soul of every believer, likewise quickened 
the life of Christ as none other on earth has been 
quickened? 

True, such an alliance of Jesus with God, as is here 
supposed, was an infinite compliment paid humanity; 
but was it not richly deserved ? Apt the sentiment and 
conclusion of Roussel, " Like Father, like Son." Who 
can escape it? If he had inherited the grace and 
purity of a most perfect mother, and the divine truth 
and majestic bearing of God himself, would he have 
done differently? Would he have wrought mightier 
miracles, or established a grander spiritual kingdom? 

Jesus is a Miracle. We call especial attention to 
but a single characteristic, yet one which is a test 
every way sufficient. We mean, his spotless, nay, his 
absolute purity. 

That he possessed this there can be no question. 
" Sceptic after sceptic has glared into the character of 
Christ, searching for a flaw ; and sceptic after sceptic 
has recoiled with the confession that, whatever Chris- 



MANIFESTATION. 405 

tianity might be, this Jesus of Nazareth was honest 
and pure. No character known to history has been 
subjected to scrutiny so piercing as that of Jesus 
Christ ; and there is no character known to history, 
except his, of which moral perfection could for a 
moment be maintained." 

To us this characteristic seems greater than the 
power to rise from the grave. The embodiment of 
moral beauty, — what is it, unless it be — God ? 

The purity of Jesus is not cold, distant, and neg- 
ative, but positive, elevated, and grand. It is full of 
sympathy and simplicity, yet a simplicity which is, 
stamped upon the very forehead of sublimity. How 
strange it is for one to live in this world who never 
felt personal guilt, or the need of pardon, and who 
never asked for it! There is nowhere in the records 
any indication of his repentance of a single word or 
thought. And yet never man lived who had such 
keen sense of the least dereliction in thought, word, 
and deed. " In the broad highway of history," it is 
certain we nowhere meet, in this respect, his like. 
" This is the one grand picture God has hung up in the 
centre of the world." „ He is, beyond all controversy, 
an exception to the universal experience of mankind. 
His is the only life that has been a compliment to 
God ; and is his not the highest compliment God has 
yet received ? 

Was he, then, only a more exalted Plato, a more 
virtuous Socrates, a wiser Confucius ; merely a phi- 
losopher among philosophers ; only the most enlight- 
ened of teachers, the most patient of sufferers, and 
the most pure of moralists ? He merely this ? — he 



406 GOD-MAN. 

who, alone among the millions of the race, stands forth 
by universal consent as the only pattern of absolute 
perfection, whose entire life, without inclining one 
hair's breadth to either side, pointed straight upward 
to heaven.* 

Nay, more ; is not he whose life was held up and held 
out to the world, and then after a brief space, by the 
will of God, was dashed in pieces like a potter's ves- 
sel, — but the shattered fragments of which, now that 
they are gathered into a brief history, contain power 
sufficient to change and purify the life of the whole 
world, power enough, even, to move nations and centu- 
ries together towards the universal and primeval Eden, 
whose broken body and bleeding wounds are sacredly 
commemorated in grateful remembrance of his dying 
request by all the civilized nations of the earth, — is 
not he all he claimed to be ? and to claim for himself 
more than he did — how can that be possible ? 

Jesus is the Saviour, The sphere of miracle in 
which we find him so evidently enthroned, indicates 
abundant qualification for a work apparently of insu- 
perable magnitude. A supernatural work, involving 
the regeneration and entire redemption of a human 
soul from sin and guilt, he can accomplish, because 
he can employ supernatural agencies. 

It is eminently fitting,' and perfectly natural, for him, 
when exigencies require it, to act supernaturally ; it 
would be marvellously unnatural for him to do other- 
wise. 

Nor is this all. He saves, not by his superhuman 
instructions merely, not by a faultless and exemplified 

* Bayne. 



MANIFESTATION. 407 

theory chiefly, nor yet by working supernatural won- 
ders before the eyes of men, but as we have seen by 
answering the strange, yet ultimate condition of univer- 
sal and essential theology, which required the shed- 
ding of his blood ! 

By this act Jesus is a perfect response to the univer- 
sal prayer of mankind, the manifest illumination of 
the shadows of all old dispensations, literally fulfilling 
their types, and realizing to the letter their repeated 
predictions. u The use of Jewish forms was not un- 
worthy of Jesus ; nay, the avoiding of them would have 
been affectation." * It was his passage through the 
world in this character of a vicarious victim, which 
announced that the temple and altars of Jerusalem, 
and the altars of the whole world, were no longer of 
service, and that all prophecies were henceforth closed, 
"like gates through which a king or conqueror has 
passed." 

We do not here investigate definite theories and 
methods, but would fix attention upon the simple fact. 

In doing this the wide field of testimony is already 
before us. Jesus continually assures the world that he 
saves others by dying himself. His solemn prediction 
is in the way of literal and complete fulfilment.f 

The disciples, likewise, always, and without qualifi- 
cation, condition the world's redemption upon Christ's 
sacrificial atonement. And the confession of Chris- 
tians, all history and countries through, is in such strik- 
ing uniformity, that its report respecting this feature 
of Christ's work is overwhelming. And besides this 
Christian sentiment, there is also, down deep in the 

* De Wette. t J°hn xii. 32. 



408 GOD-MAN. 

heart of universal humanity, a lingering conviction 
that about the cross and death of Jesus revolve, in some 
manner, all the vital interests and destinies of time and 
eternity. 

Other agencies have been employed, the eyes of 
men have been often turned in different and opposite 
directions, yet from no other source has come to hu- 
man hearts any substantial release or relief. 

But whenever the man of sin and guilt, even if in 
deepest anguish, and well nigh despairing, whose mis- 
ery is but increased by contemplating the requirements 
of that holy law, and that model and ideal life, — yes, 
when such an unfortunate despondent seeks the cross 
of Christ, and stands in tears and repentance under its 
shadow, — the truth then dawns upon him ; the atone- 
ment enthrones itself in his heart, his soul is full, his 
eyes brim full, and abiding in this faith, he rejoices ever- 
more, and adds to that of all others, perhaps in terms 
of tangled grammar and confused rhetoric, his own 
version of the beautiful story of the cross and its power 
to redeem. 

It is thus that Christ breathes new life into human 
nature, and lifts up fallen men, making of them, " ac- 
tually and truly, living images of God." No wonder 
that the world looked forward to his coming, and that 
all now look back to it, and that multitudes look fondly 
forward to his coming again. No wonder that he is 
the only one among all the world's great men, philoso- 
phers, sages, and reformers, to whom untold millions 
bend the knee, and whom they welcome as the Lord 
of Glory. No wonder that when he is presented to the 
rude inhabitants of any clime, they, too, answer back, 



MANIFESTATION. 409 

that God himself is in the midst of them. Verily, 
" the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath ap- 
peared to all men, teaching us, that denying ungodli- 
ness, and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, right- 
eously, and godly in this present world, looking for that 
blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great 
God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself 
for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity." * 

But are our problems yet solved ? How is it pos- 
sible that Jesus could have been such a teacher, sur- 
passing all other teachers, such an example enthron- 
ing himself so completely in the realm of eternal ideals, 
such a miracle-worker, such an inscrutable miracle 
himself, and such an infinite Saviour as he is? and how 
is it possible that he could have responded so fully to 
the prayer of humanity as to be, by universal recogni- 
tion, the " Concord of Ages," the " true Ecumenical," 
the Absolute Elect, the one towards whom turn our 
ndblest impulses as naturally as the flower to the sun? 
nay, how could he have so completely thrilled human 
consciousness with such transforming and transcendent 
earnestness and ecstasy as are witnessed, instances 
without number, unless the Great and Eternal One had 
dwelt in him, even with all the undiminished grandeur 
of his perfections? 

Does not the solution of the multiplied and involved 
difficulties rest alone with that sublime Christian faith 
which is able to write its confident inscription above 
this page of otherwise inexplicable world-problems, 
He in whom we believe is both Jesus of Nazareth 
and Almighty God — the world's God-man ? 

* Titus ii. 11-13. 



APPENDIX 



411 



APPENDIX. 



A. (Page 58.) 

A sentence of St. Austin throws light upon this sub- 
ject : — 

" The ancient Romans worshipped I know not what god, 
whom they call Summanus, more than they did Jupiter. But 
after that a stately and magnificent temple was erected to 
Jupiter, they all betook themselves thither, insomuch that 
the name of Summanus, now not at all heard, is scarcely to be 
found irt ancient writings." 

No one can well take exception to Dr. Schaff's review of 
Greek and Roman polytheism. "Its polytheism rested on a 
dim monotheistic background, subjected all the gods to Jupi- 
ter, and Jupiter himself to a mysterious fate ; it had at bot- 
tom the feeling of dependence on higher powers, and rever- 
ence for divine things; it preserved the memory of a golden 
age and of a fall; it had the voice of conscience, and a sense, 
obscure though it was, of guilt; it felt the need of reconcilia- 
tion with Deity, and sought that reconciliation by prayer, 
penance, and sacrifice. Many of its religious traditions and 
usages were faint echoes of the primal religion ; and its myth- 
ological dreams of the mingling of the gods with men, of 
Prometheus delivered by Hercules from his helpless sufferings, 
were unconscious prophecies and fleshly anticipations of 
Christian truths." 

413 



414 GOD-MAN. 

B. (Page 60.) 

This is easily seen in the composition of Israelitish names 
not only with El, but also with Baal, such as Jerubbaal (ad- 
versary of Baal) (Gideon, Judges vi. 32, and elsewhere), 
Esbaal (1 Chron. viii. 33, ix. 39), Meribbaal (1 Chron. viii. 
34. ix. 40), names which afterwards, on account of aver- 
sion to Baal, are changed into Jerubboseth (2 Sam. xi. 21), 
Isboseth (2 Sam. ii. 8, and elsewhere), and Mephiboseth 
(2 Sam. iv. 4, and elsewhere) ; as also the interchanging of 
El and Baal (Judges viii. 33, ix. 4. Comp. with ix. 46), of 
Baaljada (1 Chron. xiv. 7), and Eljada (1 Chron. iii. 8; 2 
Sam. v. 16), Eljon El Schaddai, Adonai, even among the 
Israelites, to designate the Supreme Being. — Washburn's 
Translation of Scholten, 



C. (Page 63.) 

In reply to the claims often made by rationalists that Philo 
had much to do in moulding the mind of Jesus, and that he 
was perhaps his superior, we can do no better than quote De 
Pressense : " A judgment may now be formed of the assertion 
so lightly thrown out, that Philo is the elder brother of Jesus 
and the inspirer of John. For my part, I know no contradic- 
tions in the history of human thought more flagrant than 
those which exist between the doctrines of these two. The 
first rests wholly upon the negation of moral evil ; the start- 
ing-point of the second is the deep and bitter consciousness 
of sin. Alexandrine theosophy admits no redemption ; the 
gospel is nothing without this article. Philo proclaims 
the impossibility of Deity uniting himself directly with the 
human creature, while the incarnation is the grand theme of 
St. John. The one sees in the Word only the abstract gen- 
eralization of divine ideas ; the other adores in Him ' the only 
begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father.' Philo's 
ultimatum is this : Deity cannot touch that which is material ; 



APPENDIX. 415 

the fourth Gospel is summed up in this expression of its pro- 
logue : ' The Word became flesh.' The antithesis is absolute, 
for that which is with St. John a capital truth would be to 
the Jew of Alexandria appalling blasphemy. If, then, Chris- 
tianity must, at all costs, be linked with an antecedent sys- 
tem, this precursor must be sought elsewhere than in the syna- 
gogues of Egypt." 

D. (Page 68.) 

We would not overlook formal devotions as practised by all 
Mohammedans, or the pious devotions of the few. <; When I 
contrast," says Mr. Forster, " the silence of a Turkish mosque, 
at the hour of public prayer, with the noise and tumult so fre- 
quent in Christian temples, I stand astonished at the strange 
inversion in the two religions of the order of things which 
might naturally be expected." " I have seen," says another, 
" a congregation of at least two thousand souls assembled in 
the mosque of St. Sophia, with silence so profound, that, un- 
til I entered the body of the building, I was unaware that it 
contained a single worshipper/' 

Five times daily the muezzin proclaims the hour of prayer 
in these words. : " There is no God but God ; Mohammed is his 
prophet. Come to prayer." In the morning call this is 
added: " Prayer is better than sleep." Every Mussulman 
forthwith leaves his employment, and prostrates himself be- 
fore the great Allah. But notwithstanding all this, those best 
acquainted with Moslems tell us that these prayers are, in most 
cases, mere forms. When Christians speak of talking with 
God, these worshippers are startled. 



E. (Page 81.) 

Prescott's account of this sacrificial offering is so graphic 
that we venture to introduce it : " A year before the intended 
sacrifice, a captive, distinguished for his personal beauty, and 



41 6 GOD-MAN. 

without a blemish on his body, was selected to represent Te- 
zatlipoca. Certain tutors took charge of him, and instructed 
him how to perform his new part with becoming dignity and 
grace. He was arrayed in a splendid dress, regaled with in- 
cense, and with a profusion of sweet flowers. When he went 
abroad he was attended by a train of royal pages; and, as he 
halted in the street to play some favorite melody, the crowd 
prostrated themselves before him, and did him homage as the 
representative of their good deity. 

" In this way, he led a life of luxury till within a month of 
his sacrifice. . . . He was feasted at the banquets of the 
principal nobles, who paid him the divine honors of a divinity. 
At length the fatal day arrived. The term of his short-lived 
glories was at an end. He was stripped of his gaudy apparel, 
and bade adieu to the fair partners of his revelries. One of 
the royal barges transported him across the lake, to a temple 
which rose on its margin about a league from the city. Hith- 
er the inhabitants of the capital flocked to witness the con- 
summation of the ceremony. 

" As the sad procession wound up the sides of the pyramid, 
the unhappy victim threw away his gay chaplets of flowers, 
and broke in pieces the musical instruments with which he 
had solaced the hours of captivity. 

" On the summit he w T as received by six priests, whose long 
and matted locks flowed disorderly over their sable robes, cov- 
ered with hieroglyphic scrolls of mystic import. They led 
him to the sacrificial stone, a huge block of jasper, with its 
upper surface somewhat convex. On this the prisoner was 
stretched. Five priests secured his head and his limbs, 
while the sixth, clad in a scarlet mantle, emblematic of his 
bloody office, dexterously opened the breast of the wretched 
victim with a sharp razor of itztli, — a volcanic substance, 
hard as flint, — and inserting his hand in the wound, tore 
out the palpitating heart. The minister of death, first hold- 
ing this up towards the sun, — an object of worship throughout 
Anahuac, — cast it at the feet of the deity to whom the temple 
was dedicated, while the multitudes below prostrated them- 
selves in humble adoration." 



APPENDIX. 417 

F. (Page 90.) 

" The more I investigate ancient history," says Schlegel, 
" the more I am convinced that the civilized nations set out 
from a true worship of the Supreme Being." 

In the Shoo-King, Chinese, is the following account of a 
prayer at once noble and availing: " At the end of three de- 
cades the people of Meaou continued rebellious against the 
emperor's commands, when Yih came to the help of Yu, say- 
ing, ' It is virtue which moves heaven ; ' there is no distance to 
which it does not reach. Pride brings loss, and humility re- 
ceives increase; this is the way of heaven. In the early time 
of the emperor (Shun), when he was living by Mount Leih, he 
went into the fields, and daily cried with tears to compassion- 
ate heaven, and to his parents, taking to himself and bearing 
all guilt and evil. At the same time, with respectful service, 
he appeared before Koo-Sow, looking grave and awe-struck, 
till Koo also became truly transformed by his example. En- 
tire sincerity moves spiritual beings; how much more will 
it move the prince of Meaou! " 

One cannot fail, while reading this account of Shun, to be 
reminded of the wrestling praj^er of Jacob, and of the parables 
of the importunate widow, and friend at midnight. 

The following hymn from the Rig Veda is in the highest 
sense devotional, and, as Miiller remarks, with the change of 
a single word, " Varuna," might, with perfect propriety, be 
introduced into our Christian Liturgy : — 

" Let me not yet, O Varuna, enter into the house of clay; 
have mercy, almighty, have mercy ! 

" If I go along trembling, like a cloud driven by the winds, 
have mercy, almighty, have mercy! 

"Through want of strength, thou strong and bright god, 
have I gone to the right shore; have mercy, almighty, have 
mere}' ! 

44 Thirst came upon the worshipper, though he stood in 
the midst of the waters; have mercy, almighty, have mercy! 

27 



418 GOD-MAN. 

"Whenever we men, O Varuna, commit an offence before 
the heavenly host, whenever we break thy law through 
thoughtlessness, have mercy, almighty, have mercy ! " 

Turning from Brahminism to Buddhism, we find, as already 
hinted, that Buddha to the Buddhist was not in every case a 
mere abstraction, but often a veritable prayer-hearer. 

'•There is," says Hue, the traveller, " a very touching cus- 
tom at Lhassa. In the evening, just before sundown, all the 
people leave their work, and meet in groups in the public 
streets and squares. All kneel and begin to chant their 
prayers in a low and musical tone. 

"The concert of song which rises from all these numerous 
reunions produces an immense and solemn harmony, which 
deeply impresses the mind. We could not help sadly compar- 
ing this pagan city, where all the people prayed together, with 
our European cities, where men would blush to be seen mak- 
ing the sign of the cross." 



G. (Page 153.) 

Herbert Spencer states this matter so clearly and sensibly, 
that we venture an extended quotation. 

" We too often forget that not only is there l a soul of good- 
ness in things evil,' but very generally, also, a soul of truth in 
things erroneous. While many admit the abstract probabili- 
ty that a falsity has usually a nucleus of reality, few bear this 
abstract probability in mind when passing judgment on the 
opinions of others. A belief that is finally proved to be 
grossly at variance with fact is cast aside with indignation 
or contempt; and in the heat of antagonism scarcely any one 
inquires what there was in this belief which commended it 
to men's minds. Yet there must have been something. And 
there is reason to suspect that this something was its corre- 
spondence with certain of their experiences; an extremely 
limited or vague correspondence, perhaps, but still a corre- 



APPENDIX. 



419 



spondence. Even the absurdest report may in nearly every 
instance be traced to an actual occurrence; and had there 
been no such actual occurrence, this preposterous misrepre- 
sentation of it would never have existed. Though the dis- 
torted or magnified image transmitted to us through the re- 
fracting medium of rumor is utterly unlike the reality, yet in 
the absence of the reality there would have been no distorted 
or magnified image. 

" And thus it is with human beliefs in general. Entirely 
wrong as they appear, the implication is, that they germinat- 
ed out of actual experience — originally contained, and per- 
haps still contain, some small amount of verity. More espe- 
cially may we safely assume this in the case of beliefs that 
have long existed, and are widely diffused; and most of all 
so in the case of beliefs that are perennial, and nearly or 
quite universal. The presumption that any current opinion 
is not wholly false, gains in strength according to the num- 
ber of its adherents. 

"Admitting, as we must, that life is impossible unless 
through a certain agreement between internal convictions 
and external circumstances, — admitting, therefore, that the 
probabilities are always in favor of the truth, or at least the' 
partial truth, of a conviction, — we must admit that the con- 
victions entertained by many minds in common, are the most 
likely to have some foundation. The elimination of individ- 
ual errors of thought must give to the resulting judgment a 
certain additional value. It may indeed be urged that many 
widely-spread beliefs are received on authority, that those 
entertaining them make no attempts at verification, and 
hence it may be inferred that the multitude of adherents adds 
but little to the probability of a belief. But this is not true. For 
a belief which gains extensive reception without critical ex- 
amination is thereby proved to have a general congruity with 
the various other beliefs of those who receive it; and in so 
far as these various other beliefs are based upon personal ob- 
servation and judgment, they give an indirect warrant to one 
with which they harmonize." 



420 GOD-MAN. 

H. (Page 1 68.) 

Mr. Parker's picture of the ruling family of Rome is so vivid, 
that we cannot forbear quoting. 

" At Rome, eighteen centuries ago this very year (1853), 
Nero was married to a maiden called Octavia. He was the son 
of Ahenobarbus and Agrippina; the son of a father so aban- 
doned and a mother so profligate that when congratulated by 
his friends on the birth of his first child, and that child a son, 
the father said, ' What is born of such a father as I, and such 
a mother as my wife, can only be for the ruin of the state.' 
Octavia was yet worse born. She was the daughter of Clau- 
dius and Messalina. Claudius was the Emperor of Rome, 
stupid by nature, licentious and drunken by long habit, and 
infamous for cruelty in that age never surpassed for its op- 
pressiveness, before or since. Messalina, his third wife, was 
a monster of wickedness, who had every vice that can dis- 
grace the human kind, except avarice and hypocrisy: her 
boundless prodigality saved her from avarice, and her match- 
less impudence kept her clean from hypocrisy. Too incon- 
tinent, even, of money to hoard it, she was so careless of the 
opinions of others that she^made no secret of any vice. 

" Her name is still the catchword for the most loathsome acts 
that can be conceived of. She was put to death for attempt- 
ing to destroy her husband's life; he was drunk when he 
signed the warrant, and when he heard that his wife had been 
assassinated at his command, he went to drinking again. 

" Agrippina, the mother of Nero, and the bitterest enemj 7 of 
Messalina, took her place in a short time, and became the 
fourth wife of her uncle Claudius, who succeeded to the 
last and deceased husband of Agrippina only as he succeeded 
to the first Roman king — a whole commonwealth of prede- 
cessors intervening. Octavia, aged eleven, was already es- 
poused to another, who took his life when his bride's father 
married the mother of Nero, well knowing the fate that 
awaited him. Claudius, repudiating his own son, adopted 






APPENDIX. 421 

Nero as his child and imperial heir. In less than two years, 
Agrippina poisoned her husband, and by a coup d'etat put 
Nero on the throne, who, ere long, procured the murder of 
his own mother, Seneca, the philosopher, helping him in the 
plot; but in due time to fall by the hand of the tyrant." 



I. (Page 172.) 

Certain portions of this Eclogue betray noticeable famil- 
iarity with the prophecies of Isaiah, Micah, and other Mes- 
sianic Hebrew prophets. Virgil's acquaintance with these 
writings is easy of explanation if we call to mind that the 
Jews with whom he must have been acquainted at the time 
lived in great numbers in one quarter of Rome. The fol- 
lowing translation by Edwin Higginson will be of interest 
to the reader : — 

" Sicilian Muses, let us sing of somewhat greater themes; 

Groves and lowly shrubs are not to every one's taste : 

If we sing of sylvan themes, let them be such as are worthy 

of a consul's ear. 
Now is come the final age of the Cumaean prophecy. 
The great round of time begins afresh. 
Now the Virgin (Astrsea) returns; the kingdom of Saturn 

returns ; 
Now a new race is sent down from heaven above. 
Only be thou propitious to the child at his birth, 
With whom first the iron age shall end, and the golden arise 

on the whole world; 
O chaste Lucina, be propitious"; already thine Apollo reigns. 
Thus, in thy consulship, yes, thine, the glorious age shall 

come in, 
Pollio, and the majestic months shall begin their march. 
Under thy guidance, any remaining traces of our wickedness 



422 GOD-MAN. 

Shall be cancelled, and leave the earth free from its constant 

dread. 
He shall be endowed with the life of the gods, and shall see 
Heroes mixed with gods, and shall himself be seen by them, 
And with his ancestral worth shall rule a peaceful world. 
But to thee, O boy, the earth without culture shall pour forth 

as its first offerings. 
Ivy branches wandering abroad, mixed with spikenard, 
And the Egyptian bean mixed with the smiling acanthus, 
The she-goats of their own accord shall bring home their 

milk-distended teats. 
Nor shall the herds of cattle fear the mighty lions. 
The cradle shall spontaneously pour out sweet flowers upon 

thee. 
The serpent shall die out; the deceitful poisonous herb shall 

cease ; 
The Assj'rian amomum shall be of common growth. 
But, so soon as thou shalt be able to read the praises of he- 
roes and the deeds of thy father, 
And to know what virtue and valor mean, 
The plain shall gradually grow yellow with soft ears of 

corn, 
And the ruddy grape shall hang upon the wild brambles, 
And the hard oak distil honey-like dew-drops. 
Yet a few traces of our ancient iniquity will lurk, 
Impelling men to tempt the sea in ships, and to wall their 

cities, 
And to plough the ground with furrows. 
There will be a second Tiphys and another Argo 
To carry chosen heroes ; there will still be new wars ; 
And again shall a mighty Achilles be sent to Troy. 
After that, when confirmed life shall have made thee a 

man, 
The mariner himself shall give up seafaring; nor shall 

ships 
Exchange traffic; each land shall produce everything. 
The ground shall not submit to the rake, nor the vine to the 

pruning-hook, 



APPENDIX. 423 

And the stout ploughman shall loose the joke from the bulls. 
Nor shall the wool be taught to assume artificial colors, 
But the rams shall naturally vary their fleeces in the meadows, 
Now with sweetly blushing purple, now with saffron yellow; 
The sandyx shall clothe with its own hue the lambs that feed 

upon it. 
"Run on, O ages such as these," the Fates, 
Immutable in their firm will, have said to their revolving 

spindles. 
O thou dear offspring of the gods, Jove's great descendant, 
Accept thy mighty honors! the time will soon come! 
See the world tottering with its convex weight; 
See its lands, and the ocean's tracts, and heaven profound ; 
See how all things rejoice in the age about to come! 
O, may the latter part of my life hold on so long, 
And my breath suffice to speak thy deeds! 
Nor the Thracian Orpheus shall surpass me in song, 
Nor Linus; though his mother help the one, his father the 

other, 
Calliope her Orpheus, the handsome Apollo his Linus. 
Though Pan were to contend with me, and Arcadia to be 

judge, 
Even Pan should confess himself surpassed, and Arcadia 

assent. 
Begin, little boy, to recognize thy mother by her smile; 
To that mother ten months have brought long weariness. 
Begin, little boy; him whom his parents smile not on, 
No god thinks worthy of his board, nor goddess of her 

couch." 



424 GOD-MAN. 

J. (Page 184.) 

In not a few instances doubters have been cured of their 
scepticism by their own explorations and investigations. In- 
stances illustrating this statement may be found in Fleming's 
Christology. 

The following illustration by the author of Mythical The- 
ories of Christianity shows how the discovery of a single 
incident overcomes a difficulty otherwise well nigh insuper- 
able. It is also an illustration of a class of evidence in favor 
of the historical truthfulness of the evangelists which is 
yearly accumulating. 

"We all remember the account of the murder of John the 
Baptist. It is told with all those minute and delicate touches 
which are the peculiar indication of autoptic testimony. It 
places before our eyes the great feast — the young lady dan- 
cing her lascivious dance — the words of Herod's vow — the 
girl's going out with excitement to her mother — the demand 
of the Baptist's head in a large dish — the sorrow and reluc- 
tant consent of Herod — the mission of the executioner — 
the presentation of the head to the girl, and by her to her 
mother. Everything betokens the presence of an eye-witness. 

"The narrative is open to this obvious objection: How 
could the disciples of Christ, mean and low as they were, 
procure so accurate a description of an event which hap- 
pened in the palace at the great feast? There were neither 
newspapers nor reporters in those days. But this is only the 
beginning of the difficulty. The authors of the Gospels 
profess to give us the exact words which were uttered by 
Herod, in the retirement of his palace, when the reports 
brought him of the fame of Jesus rendered him conscience- 
stricken. The words are most remarkable, and leave no 
alternative between their being the words of Herod or a 
forgery. i It is John,' says he, * whom I beheaded : he is 
risen from the dead, and therefore mighty works do show 
forth themselves in him.' Our version spoils the force of 



• APPENDIX. 425 

the last words, which, rendered literally, are, 'The powers 
energize in him.' This is certainly a most singular expres- 
sion, and one open to a strong suspicion of forgery ; for how 
could the followers of Jesus have got hold of the very words 
of an utterance of Herod spoken in the retirement of the 
palace ? 

" But besides all this, these words plainly imply that it was 
the general idea that a large number of miracles had been 
wrought by our Lord. My opponents suppose that the his- 
toric Jesus only attempted to work miracles in a very few 
questionable cases, and that the multitude of miracles which 
have been subsequently ascribed to him are the inventions 
of his deluded followers. Such are the difficulties. Now for 
their solution. 

"It has been observed that the author of the Acts of the 
Apostles tells us that among the teachers of the church at 
Antioch, during Paul's sojourn there, was Manaen, who was 
a foster-brother of Herod the tetrarch. This is told us in a 
manner which is purely incidental, and supplies us with a 
possible source from whence the information might have 
been derived. Still it by no means follows that a man who 
had the same wet-nurse as Herod was an inmate of his pal- 
ace, or witnessed the great feast. 

" But a passage of the most incidental character in St. 
Luke's Gospel supplies us with the source of information 
which we w T ant. In narrating our Lord's last journey to 
Jerusalem, Luke tells us that he was accompanied by the 
twelve apostles, and several women who ministered to him. 
Of these he designates three by name. One of these is 
described as Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward. 

"Here, then, we have the very person we are in want of. 
Chuza's office of steward imposed on him the duty of super- 
intending the great feast. He therefore witnessed the whole 
procedure, and his wife was in constant communication with 
the disciples. His office must have brought him into daily 
communication w-ith his master. What more likely than, 
when he waited on Herod for his orders, he would ask him 
the news, and that he should report to him the fame of the 



426 GOD-MAN. 

great Teacher with whom his wife was in attendance? He 
was therefore in the exact situation to have heard Herod's 
conscience-stricken exclamation. The source of information 
is before us. The incidental mention of Joanna and her 
husband affords to this narrative an attestation such as few 
events in past history possess." 

The following instances, fully developed by Farrar, belong 
to the same class of evidence : Sergius, the proconsul of 
Cyprus, was thought to have held the position of propraetor 
until Luke's statement was verified by the discovery of coins. 

Lysanias, tetrarch of Abilene, was ridiculed as a clumsy 
invention, until Renan even had the candor to admit that 
the inscription of Zenodorus at Baalbek is strong evidence 
that the evangelist was right. 

And so of the taxing in the time of Cyrenius lately inves- 
tigated by Zumpt 



We do not remember to have seen the numerous, dissim- 
ilar, and independent evidences of Gospel credibility stated 
more clearly and forcibly than by Davison : — 

" If man's contrivance, or if the favor of accident, could 
have given to Christianity any of its apparent testimonies, 
either its miracles or its prophecies, its morals or its propa- 
gation, or, if I may so speak, its Founder, there would be no 
reason to belie\ r e, or even to imagine, that all these appear- 
ances of great credibility could be united together by any 
such causes. If a successful craft could have contrived its 
public miracles, or so much as the pretence of them, it re- 
quired another reach of craft and new resources to provide 
and adapt its prophecies to the same object. Further, it 
demands, not only a different art, but a totally opposite 
character, to conceive and propagate its admirable morals. 
Again, the achievement of its propagation, in defiance of the 
powers and terrors of the world, implied a new energy of 
personal genius, and other qualities of action, than any 
occurring in the work before. Lastly, the model of the life 



APPENDIX. 427 

of its Founder, in the very description of it, is a work of so 
much originality and wisdom as could be the offspring only 
of consummate powers of invention. But the hypothesis 
sinks under its incredibility. For each of these suppositions 
of contrivance being arbitrary, as it certainly is, and unsup- 
ported, the climax of them is an extravagance. And if the 
imbecility of Art is foiled in the hypothesis, the combinations 
of Accident are too vain to be thought of." 

Racine draws out a single point in this class of internal 
evidence very forcibly. 

" How admirable and beautiful is the simplicity of the evan- 
gelists ! They never speak injuriously of the enemies of 
Jesus Christ, of his judges, nor of his executioners. They 
report the facts without a single reflection. They comment 
neither on their Master's mildness when he was smitten, nor 
on his constancy in the hour of his ignominious death, which 
they thus describe : 'And they crucified Jesus.'" 



K. (Page 202.) 

Parker's confession affords a good sample. " The words 
of Christianity," he says, "have come down to us from the 
lips of that Hebrew youth, gentle and beautiful as the light 
of a star, not spent by their journey through time and 
through space. They have built up a new civilization, which 
the wisest Gentile never hoped for, which the most pious 
Hebrew never foretold. Through centuries of wasting, these 
words have flown on, like a dove in the storm, and now wait 
to descend on hearts pure and earnest, as the Father's Spirit, 
we are told, came down on his lowly Son. The old heaven 
and the old earth are indeed passed away, but the Word 
stands. Nothing shows clearer than this how fleeting is 
what man calls great, how lasting what God pronounces 
true. Christ says his words shall never pass away. Yet at 
first sight nothing seems more fleeting than a word. It is an 



428 GOD-MAN. 

evanescent impulse of the most fickle element. It leaves no 
track where it went through the air. Yet to this, and this 
only, did Jesus intrust the truth wherewith he came laden to 
the earth — truth for the salvation of the world. He took no 
pains to perpetuate his thoughts ; they were poured forth 
where occasion found him an audience, by the side of the 
lake or a well, in a cottage or the temple, in a fishers boat 
or the synagogue of the Jews. He founds no institution as 
a monument of his words. He appoints no order of men to 
preserve his bright and glad revelations. He only bids his 
friends give freely the truth they had freely received. He 
did not even write his words in a book. With a noble con- 
fidence, the result of his abiding faith, he scattered them 
broadcast on the world, leaving the seed to its own vitality. 
He knew that what is of God cannot fail, for God keeps his 
own. He sowed his seed in the heart, and left it there, to be 
watered and warmed by the dew and the sun which heaven 
sends. He felt his words were for eternity. So ne trusted 
them to the uncertain air; and for eighteen hundred years 
that faithful element has held them good — distinct as when 
first warm from his lips. Now they are translated into 
every human speech, and murmured in all earth's thousand 
tongues, from the pine forests of the north to the palm 
groves of eastern Ind. They mingle, as it were, with the 
roar of a populous city, and join the chime of the desert sea. 
Of a Sabbath morn they are repeated from church to church, 
from isle to isle, and land to land, till their music goes round 
the world. These words have become the breath of the 
good, the hope of the wise, the joy of the pious, and that 
for many millions of hearts. They are the prayers of our 
churches, our better devotion by fireside and fieldside, the 
enchantment of our hearts. It is these words that still work 
wonders, to which the first recorded miracles were nothing 
in grandeur and utility. It is these which build our temples 
and beautify our homes. They raise our thoughts of sub- 
limity, they purify our ideal of purity, they hallow our prayer 
for truth and love. They make beauteous and divine the life 
which plain men lead. They give wings to our aspirations. 



APPENDIX. 429 

What charmers they are ! Sorrow is lulled at their bidding. 
They take the sting out of disease, and rob adversity of his 
power to disappoint. They give health and wings to the 
pious soul, broken-hearted and shipwrecked in his voyage 
through life, and encourage him to tempt the perilous way 
once more. They make all things ours — Christ our brother, 
Time our servant, Death our ally and the witness of our 
triumph. They reveal to us the presence of God, which else 
we might not have seen so clearly, in the first wind-flower 
of spring, in the falling of a sparrow, in the distress of a 
nation, in the sorrow or the rapture of the world. Silence 
the voice of Christianity, and the world is well nigh dumb, 
for gone is that sweet music which kept in awe the rulers of 
the people, which cheers the poor widow in her lonely toil, 
and comes like light through the windows of morning, to 
men who sit stooping and feeble, with failing eyes and a 
hungering heart. It is gone — ail gone! only the cold, 
bleak world left before them." 



L. (Page 219.) 

"An assertion of unlimited miraculous power is so diffi- 
cult to substantiate," says Farrar, "that, apart from Chris- 
tianity, I scarcely know a single instance in which it has been 
put forward. Prophets of the most splendid reputation did 
not claim them. St. John the Baptist, intensely and power- 
fully as he swayed the inmost hearts of his nation, was never 
accredited with them. Founders of great religions, — Confu- 
cius, Sakya Mouni, Zoroaster, Mohammed, — even in obscure 
ages, even amid barbarous surroundings, made no pretence 
to them. If, in a few instances, Christian saints have pro- 
fessed to be endowed with them, it has been only in virtue of 
Christ's power; not even in their legends do they occur in 
contemporaneous evidence, or in any but instances of a 
dubious kind. 

"Yet Christ, surrounded as he was by the 'immense pub- 



430 GOD-MAN. 

licitj- ' of furious Jews, and haughty Romans, and sneering 
Greeks, not only claimed them, but his claim was undisputed 
by his deadliest enemies. Neither the Pharisees, nor the 
multitudes, nor Caiaphas, nor Herod, nor Celsus, nor Por- 
phyry, nor Hierocles, nor Julian, dreamed of denying that 
He had wrought deeds apparently supernatural ; and it is an 
insult to the understanding to compare the evidence on 
which they rest either with the vulgar travesty of a miracle 
alleged to have been wrought by a coarse soldier before the 
rabble of Alexandria, or with the posthumous plagiarisms in 
the heavy romance of the sophist Philostratus." 



M. (Page 220.) 

The account of the first interview between Jesus and his 
disciples is thus happily stated by Ruskin : — 

" I suppose there is no event in the life of Christ to which, 
in hours of doubt or fear, men turn with more anxious thirst 
to know the close facts of it, or with more earnest and pas- 
sionate dwelling upon every syllable of its recorded narra- 
tive, than Christ's showing himself to his disciples at the 
Lake of Galilee. There is something pre-eminently open, 
natural, full fronting our disbelief, in this manifestation. 
The others, recorded after the resurrection, were sudden, 
phantom-like, occurring to men in profound sorrow and 
wearied agitation of heart; not, it might seem, safe judges 
of what they saw. But the agitation was now over. They 
had gone back to their daily work, thinking still their busi- 
ness lay net-wards, unmeshed from the literal rope and drag. 
' Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a-fishing. They say 
unto him, We also go with thee.' True words enough, 
and having far echo beyond those Galilean hills. That 
night they caught nothing; but when the morning came, in 
the clear light of it, behold, a figure stood on the shore. 
They were not thinking of anything but their fruitless hauls. 



APPENDIX. 43 1 

They had no guess who it was. It asked them simply if they 
had caught anything. They said, No. And it tells them to 
cast yet again. 'And John shades his eyes from the morning 
sun with his hands-, to look who it is, and though the 
glinting of the sea, too, dazzles him, he makes out who it is 
at last; and poor Simon, not to be outrun this time, tightens 
his fisher's coat about him, and dashes in, over the nets. 
One would have liked to see him swim those hundred yards, 
and stagger to his knees on the beach. 

44 Well, the others get to the beach, too, in time, in such 
slow way as men in general do get, in this world, to its true 
shore, much impeded by that wonderful ' dragging the net 
with fishes ; ' but they get there, seven of them in all, — 
first the denier, and then the slowest believer, and then the 
quickest believer, and then the two throne-seekers, and two 
more, we know not who. They sit down on the shore, face 
to face with him, and eat their broiled fish, as he bids. And 
then to Peter, all dripping still, shivering, and amazed, star- 
ing at Christ in the sun, on the other side of the coal fire, 
thinking a little, perhaps, of what happened by another coal 
fire, when it was colder, and having had no word once 
changed with him by his Master since that look of his, — to 
him, so amazed, comes the question, * Simon, lovest thou 
me?' Try to feel that a little, and think of it till it is true 
to you." 



N. (Page 223.) 

The attitude of the disciples in this respect is well stated 
by Dr. Lindsay, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica : — 

" The apostles invariably represent the humanity of Christ 
as being in itself a marvellous thing. The simple fact that 
he should have been a man ; that he should have been born ; 
that he should have had a woman for his mother; that he 
should have grown in wisdom and stature; that he should 
have lived in circumstances of poverty and toil; that he 



432 GOD-MAN. 

should have been persecuted; and that he should have died, 
though admitted as facts, are all, in the judgment of his fol- 
lowers, so many marvels, at which they cannot sufficiently 
wonder. With them it is not his divine nature and perfec- 
tions that are the objects of admiration; it is his humanity 
at which they stand in amaze. Is this to be accounted for 
otherwise than on the supposition that they esteemed him 
in original and proper nature as divine, and that what filled 
them with wonder was that he, the divine, should conde- 
scend to become man? " 

Francis Newman is correct when saying that "it is doubt- 
ful whether the other apostles dwelt at all more on the human 
personality of Jesus than Paul did, which is scarcely at all." 



O. (Page 227.) 

It is singular that, though others have given descriptions 
of the personal appearance of Jesus, the disciples have not 
in any way, or to any extent, alluded to the subject. 

The following is a correct translation of an epistle sent by 
Publius Lentulus to the Roman senate : — 

"There appeared, in these days, a man of great virtue, 
named Jesus Christ, w r ho is yet among us ; of the Gentiles 
accepted for a prophet of truth ; but his disciples call him 
the Son of God. He raiseth the dead, and cureth all man- 
ner of disease. A man of stature somewhat tall and comely, 
with a very reverend countenance, such as the beholder must 
both love and fear. His hair the color of a chestnut full 
ripe, plain to the ears, whence, downward, it is more orient, 
curling, and waving about his shoulders. In the midst of 
his forehead is a stream or partition of his hair, after the 
manner of the Nazarites ; forehead plain and very delicate ; 
his face without spot or wrinkle, beautiful, with a lovely red; 
his nose and mouth so forked as nothing can be represented ; 
his beard thick, in color like his hair; not over long; his 



APPENDIX. 433 

look innocent and mature; his eyes gray, quick, and clear. 
In reproving he is terrible, in admonishing courteous and 
fair-spoken; pleasant in conversation, mixed with gravity. 
It cannot be remembered that any have seen him laugh, but 
many have seen him weep. In proportion of body, most 
excellent; his hands and arms delectable to behold; in 
speaking, very temperate, modest, and wise; a man of sin- 
gular beauty, surpassing the children of men." 

All absence of relics and descriptions of personal appear- 
ance, so far as the apostles are concerned, accords with the 
feelings of the devout believer. He would have it thus, 
rather than otherwise. His tendency is to emphasize the 
deity of Jesus, and scarcely to recognize his humanity. 

The healthfulness of this condition of Christian feeling is 
well stated by Ruskin, while condemning the Catholic rev- 
erential use of paintings : — 

"But I nevertheless believe that he who trusts much to 
such helps will find them fail him at his need, and that the 
dependence, in any great degree, on the presence or power 
of a picture, indicates a wonderfullj- feeble sense of the pres- 
ence and power of God. I do not think that any man, who 
is thoroughly certain that Christ is in the room, will care 
what sort of pictures of Christ he has on its walls; and, in 
the plurality of cases, the delight taken in art of this kind is, 
in reality, nothing more than a form of graceful indulgence 
of those sensibilities which the habits of a disciplined life 
restrain in other directions. Such art is, in a word, the 
opera and drama of a monk. Sometimes it is worse than 
this, and the love of it is the mask under which a general 
thirst for morbid excitement will pass itself for religion. 

"The young lady who rises in the middle of the day, jaded 
by her last night's ball, and utterly incapable of any simple 
or wholesome religious exercise, can still gaze into the dark 
eyes of the Madonna di San Sisto, or dream over the white- 
ness of an ivory crucifix, and returns to the course of her 
daily life in full persuasion that her morning's feverishness 
has atoned for her evening's folly. And ail the while, the art 
28 



434 GOD-MAN. 

which possesses these very doubtful advantages is acting for 
undoubtful detriment, in the various ways above examined, 
on the inmost fastnesses of faith ; it is throwing subtle en- 
dearments round foolish traditions, confusing sweet fancies 
with sound doctrines, obscuring real events with unlikely 
semblances, and enforcing false assertions with pleasant cir- 
cumstantiality, until, to the usual, and assuredly sufficient, 
difficulties standing in the way of belief, its votaries have 
added a habit of sentimentally changing what they know to 
be true, and of dearly loving what they confess to be false." 



P. (Page 271.) 

In this list of those who wrote against the Christians ap- 
pears Trypho the Jew, whom Eusebius calls the most distin- 
guished of the Hebrews. He ridiculed those Jews who be- 
came Christians, upon the ground that " those who have 
a better God should not worship Jesus of the Gentiles." 

Lucian was another opponent. His works, Peregrinus and 
Pkilopseudes, show him to have been the "type of athe- 
istic selfishness." He made Christianity the butt of his rid- 
icule, and, in doing so, continually misrepresented it. It is 
uncertain whether, from the narrow-minded and morbid 
views of certain believers, he misapprehended the essential 
character of Christianity, or whether he blindly closed his 
eyes to the real excellences of the system. It is worthy of 
remark, however, that he spoke of Christ as " that great man 
who was crucified in Palestine." 

Celsus, who is well known to all our readers, also em- 
ployed the weapons of his witty and acute intellect in all 
manner of attacks. At times he displayed even vehement 
passion against everything called Christian. It is sufficient 
proof of his blindness and prejudice to say that he acknowl- 
edged not a single redeeming quality in Christ, in Christian- 
ity, or in any Christian he ever knew. 



APPENDIX. 435 

Porphyry was, in some respects, quite the reverse of Cel- 
sus. By nature he had a nobler spirit, and was in possession 
of profound intellectual attainments. Yet he disclosed in 
no respect a Christian spirit. On the contrary,. he adroitly 
availed himself of every point in the Christian faith which 
presented an object of attack. He was always careful, how- 
ever, never to calumniate Jesus, but recognized him as a 
" pious soul," though he expressed pity for those who wor- 
ship him as God. 

Hierocles, president of Bithynia, was the last of those au- 
thors against Christianity who flourished prior to Constan- 
tine. In a kind of mockery, Hierocles styled himself a 
friend of Christians, but invented all manner of falsehoods 
respecting the history of Christ. He charged the apostles 
with being "jugglers" and "liars." He was the Renan of 
his times, without Renan's politeness. 

We may add to this list Julian, the last of all the early hea- 
then infidels who at all signalized themselves by their assaults 
upon Christianity. His monkish education led him to think 
unfavorably of the Christian system, and to prefer instead 
the heathenism of Rome. His persecutions, though blood- 
less, were characterized by all manner of oppressions. His 
importance is now acknowledged as of the smallest account, 
and none deny that for ten j r ears of his life he was a most 
consummate dissembler and hypocrite. He introduced his 
work against the Christians as follows : "I think it right for 
me to show to all men the reasons by which I have been 
convinced that the religion of the Galileans is a human con- 
trivance, badly put together, having in it nothing divine; 
but by abusing the childish, irrational part of the soul, which 
delights in fable, they have introduced a heap of wonderful 
works to give it the appearance of truth." 

And yet he acknowledged the true date of the Gospel his- 
tory, and objected to some things Jesus did not do, "who," 
he confessed, "rebuked the winds, and walked on the sea, 
and cast out demons." 

With the death of Julian all open opposition to the faith 
of the Gospel ceased for nearly a thousand years. 



436 GOD-MAN. 



Q. (Page 271.) 

While upon this much contested ground, it becomes ne- 
cessary in the body of the book, or in notes or appendix, to 
introduce a biographical development. We have chosen the 
latter place, and have made the treatment as brief as possible. 

The first person in the church having any considerable 
authority and influence, who denied the deity of Christ, was 
Artemon (190 A. D.). His supporters were Theodotus and 
Paul of Samosata. These theologians, while attempting to 
explain the various phenomena presented, held that Jesus 
was born of a virgin, that he was perfectly free from sin, and 
that on these accounts there was ample ground for human 
redemption and faith. 

Praxeas (200 A. D.), the next dissenter of note, was a con- 
temporary of Tertullian, and as stoutly contended for the 
pre-eminence of Christ as did this eminent apologist. He 
held that the term "son" did not designate "the divine 
nature which dwelt in the Redeemer, but the human nature 
which was united with the divine." He held that the Son 
was flesh, man, Jesus, — the Father was Spirit, God, Christ. 
He no more questioned the essential and supreme deity of 
Christ than does the soundest orthodox believer to-day. The 
principal charge brought against Praxias by Tertullian was, 
that he manifested extreme partiality for the divine unity — 
a Jewish tendency. Praxias did logically claim a imifold na- 
ture, and Tertullian, upon the same ground and with equal 
error, contended for a twofold nature in the divine being. 

A little later (220 A. D.) appeared Noetus of Smyrna. 
His aim seems to have been to avoid in his doctrinal state- 
ments all appearance of polytheism, or even tritheism, into 
both of which he thought some of the church fathers and 
teachers were drifting. He taught that the divine nature in 
the begotten man was the unbegotten God; that the God- 
head of Christ and of the Father were one and the same. 
In this he was opposed by Tertullian, and pronounced a 
heretic, though philosophically and theologically he was, in 



APPENDIX. 437 

some respects, upon as sound footing as the father who anath- 
ematized him. 

Beryl (230 A. D.), bishop of Bostria, was another noted 
dissenter. He was a man of extensive learning and of un- 
questioned piety. His theory was a development of the 
view held by Noetus. In brief, it was, that Christ did not 
exist as a distinct person before his incarnation, and that the 
Godhead in Christ prior to incarnation was such as could ex- 
ist in one undivided being; consequently, that Christ before 
incarnation was perfect Logos, but not perfect Son. Beryl 
at these points was zealously opposed by Origen, whose great 
influence and superior intellect did much, no doubt, to silence 
the so-called heretic. But Schleiermache'r thinks Beryl's 
views have a decided advantage. "We are disposed to 
think," he says, "that Beryl, when he had a conference 
with Origen at Bostria, ought rather to have converted him, 
than he to have converted Beryl." 

The theories of Noetus and Beryl paved the way for 
Sabellianism. Sabellius, the acknowledged representative 
of this theory, was one of the most original and profound 
thinkers of his time. He is represented by Theodoret as 
holding that the same being as Father gives laws, as Son 
becomes incarnate, as Spirit is conversant with us. Accord- 
ing to his creed there existed in the ages of eternity one God- 
substance, absolute, solitary, and inactive. At the beginning 
of time it occurred to this substance to create; but in order 
to do this, he found it necessary to assume two other charac- 
ters — Logos and Spirit. By the Logos he created man after 
his own image, by the Holy Spirit he filled man with wis- 
dom. In a limited manner these characters, hardly distinct 
personalities, continued to act through the ages prior to the 
Christian era. Then the Logos became incarnate, and the 
Spirit began to act with greater facility upon hearts. But at 
the end of the Christian dispensation the Father will put off 
these two personalities, which were assumed characteristics, 
and will thenceforth appear as eternal and absolute God, 
original God-substance. Sabellius allowed the use of the 
term Son in connection with Logos prophetically only, 



43^ GOD-MAN. 

actually only when applied to Jesus of Nazareth. He was 
one of the first to employ (perhaps Paul of Samosata pre- 
ceded him) the word homousios — of the same substance; he 
employed it in an exact sense, so exact as to lead for a time 
to its rejection. 

Sabellius was followed by Arius, born a century later. He 
is represented as a man of extensive learning. He was elo- 
quent, zealous in all good works, and maintained a high 
reputation for purity and sanctity. He do*es not seem to 
have courted controversy, and had no thought of opposing 
the received and authorized views of the earlier Christian 
bishops and teachers. He plainly states that he only desired 
" to preserve fully and truly the doctrine for a long time held 
by the clergy at Alexandria; " in later times leading Arians 
frequently appealed to the views of Dionysius in support of 
their own. 

The question between Arius and his bishop which intro- 
duced the subsequent controversies, as in all other instances 
within the pale of the church, grew out of an attempt to 
define, dogmatically or scientifically, the relations sustained 
by the different personalities in the Trinity. 

The logical tendencies and outcome of all these various 
" modifications " is thought, by most orthodox writers, to have 
reached their extreme in Socinianism, several centuries later. 

Laelius Socinus, after whom the system is named, was born 
1525. He maintained that Jesus Christ was a mere man, 
and that his divinity consisted simply in his divine commis- 
sion and the superior honor which was conferred upon hrm. 



R. (Page 340.) 

We have advanced to such a point in these observations 
that a definition of Christian and Christianity, upon the 
basis of this spiritual consciousness, may be justly required. 

The term Christian, as now frequently employed by radi- 



APPENDIX. 439 

cals, even in a somewhat limited sense, designates any one at 
all religiously inclined, whether believing in Christ or not. 
Christianity, in such case, is little other than Rabbinism or 
Buddhism ; indeed, we see in this view no difficulty in endow- 
ing the unchristenized California Chinese with Christianity. 
But in these times of settlements and establishments it is neces- 
sary to take into account, when defining, the essence as well 
as the surface of things. Certainly we cannot overlook signi- 
fications which have been recognized for eighteen centuries. 

The following are some of the definitions and descriptions 
of Christian and Christianity which have been given by 
eminent men : — 

"That man," says Niebuhr, "who does not hold Christ's 
earthly life, with all its miracles, to be as properly and really 
historical as any event in history, and who does not receive 
all points of the apostolic creed with the fullest conviction, 
I do not conceive to be a Protestant Christian. And as for 
that Christianity which is such according to the fashion of 
the modern philosophers and pantheists, without a personal 
God, without immortality, without an individuality of man, 
without historical faith, it may be a very ingenious and 
subtle philosophy, but it is no Christianity at all." 

Says Schleiermacher, " Everything in Christianity has 
relation to that system of redemption which was accom- 
plished by Jesus of Nazareth. By this test Christianity is 
distinguished from all other religions ; it alone is the reli- 
gion of the cross and redemption." 

" However the characteristic features of Christianity may 
be designated, however the Christian tenets may be ques- 
tioned or denied," says Luthardt, "this is the last and the 
deciding thing that marks the Christian, — that he bows the 
knee in the name of Jesus Christ. He who discards this may 
still call himself a Christian : we cannot in truth recognize 
him as such. He may be a religious man; may perhaps be, 
in his way, a pious man. There have been, and yet are, 
pious heathen, even; but a Christian, in the proper sense of 
the word, he is not." 

"I understand by Christianity," says Disselhoff, "a reli- 
gion positively biblical." 



44° GOD-MAN. 

"If morality is the chief business of the preacher, " says 
Herder, " and the Bible and the words of Jesus are mere quo- 
tations which come from God just as all truth comes from 
him, then farewell Christianity, religion, revelation. The 
names become polite masks, and. that is about all." 

''Resting confidently in the belief that Jesus is a teacher 
come from God," says Dr. Eliot, "we stand upon what may 
be called distinctively Christian ground. Not that we mean 
to deny the Christian name to those who reject the supernat- 
ural element in revelation; but it is evident that there is a 
broad distinction here, which we are compelled to recognize. 
However excellent the Christian system may be, so long as 
it fails in the claim to divine authority, Christianity can be 
no more to us than the best among the • philosophies ' of 
the world. If all stand upon the same level of authority, we 
select one or other of them, according to our best judgment. 
The sole authority, after all, would be in our own minds. 
But when we have once admitted that Jesus came from God, 
that he was inspired by the Divine Spirit to reveal the truth 
and the will of God, that ' he spake with authority,' and 
not as the philosophers and scribes, — we are removed from 
the school of speculation to that of discipleship." 

'"In fine, to reject these miracles," says Dr. Peabody, "is 
to reject the Gospels as credible narratives, and, if we still 
call ourselves Christians, to be Christians in no sense known 
to human language or history — to be disciples of a Christ 
solely of our own fabrication ; therefore our own disciples, 
not another's." 

There is truth in each of these views, but perhaps not the 
whole truth. A Christian, it is true, is one whose outward 
and inward life corresponds with the accepted faith of Chris- 
tendom ; is one who believes in a personal God and immor- 
tality, in a biblical religion, in Jesus as a teacher sent from 
God, and in the Gospel narratives as credible; all this is 
correct. 

But more than this, as it appears to us, is necessary. For 
one to be a Christian, in a sense answering vital conditions, 



APPENDIX. 44I 

he must be in possession of that Christian consciousness 
which enables the heart accurately to define religious matters, 
though the head may report poorly, and which appropriates 
to itself the God-man and all other things pertaining there- 
to, and which, when it blossoms out in its fulness, is Chris- 
tianity \x\ perfection. 



S. (Page 347.) 

St. Victor Hugo, 1100 A. D., shows very clearly how differ- 
ent symbolization and a different measure of knowledge, with- 
out impairing the unity of faith, might exist among Christians. 
" How many there are," he says, " among Christian people, 
even at the present time, who firmly believe in a future world 
and an eternal life, and fervently long after it, but are still 
very far from being able to form the remotest conception of 
what it consists in ! In like manner, before the appearance 
of Christ, there were many that firmly believed on the Al- 
mighty God, who promised them salvation, and that hoped 
tor salvation from him, and through this faith and this hope, 
actually obtained salvation, although they ever remained in 
ignorance respecting the time, the way, and the order in 
which the promised salvation would be accomplished. The 
very apostles themselves found it extremely difficult to under- 
stand how the sufferings of Christ were necessary to man's 
salvation ; and therefore it was, that what Christ said to them 
on this subject continued for so long a time to be obscured to 
them. 

" Accordingly, it is the same fundamental article of faith, 
virtually including in it all the rest, on the embracing of 
which salvation has ever depended. The matter of this faith 
was ever the same ; it became more clearly and fully unfolded, 
but it never changed. Before the law, faith was exercised 
in God as Creator, and salvation was expected from him ; but 
through whom, and in what way, this salvation was to be 



442 GOD-MAN. 

brought about, was unknown to believers, if we except a few 
to whom it was made known by a special gift of illumina- 
tion. Under the law, the Saviour was already promised as a 
person; but whether this person was to be a man, an angel, 
or God, was not yet revealed. Faith in God, as Creator and 
Redeemer, is the common ground of faith for all periods in 
the evolution of the kingdom of God, connected with which 
there may exist different measures of knowledge in different 
periods, and among different classes of men in the same 
period ; still, the simple and the enlightened are bound to- 
gether by the same faith." 



T. (Page 365.) 

Testimony as to the early spread of Christianity is abun- 
dant and reliable. Tacitus, though calling Christians " detes- 
table criminals," speaks thus : "The author of that sect was 
Christus, who had been executed in Tiberius' time by the 
procurator Pontius Pilate. This pestilential superstition 
checked, for a while, burst out again, not only through Judea, 
the first seat of the evil, but even through Rome, the centre 
both of influence and outbreak of all that is atrocious and 
disgraceful from every quarter. First were arrested those 
who made no secret of their sect, and by this clew a vast mul- 
titude of others also." 

Pliny, the friend of Trajan and Tacitus, was sent to rule 
Bithynia. He was perplexed at the devotion and numbers 
of Christians. He told the emperor that he could not compel 
a real Christian to repeat an incantation to the gods of Rome. 
He confessed himself nonplussed, " especially for the num- 
bers who are implicated." Thus, almost before the death of 
St. John, Christianity had spread into Asia well nigh to the 
suppression of paganism. 

Justin Martyr says, "There is not a race of men, barbarian 
or Greek, nay, of those who live in wagons, or who are 



APPENDIX. 443 

nomads, or shepherds in tents, among whom prayers and 
eucharists are not offered to the Father and Maker of the 
universe, through the name of the crucified Jesus." 

Clement says, "The word of our Master did not remain 
in Judea as philosophy remained in Greece, but has been 
poured out over the whole world, persuading Greeks and 
barbarians alike, race by race, village by village, every city, 
wmole houses, and hearers one by one ; nay, not a few of the 
philosophers themselves." 

Says Origen, "In all Greece, and in all barbarian races 
within our world, there are tens of thousands who have left 
their national laws and customary gods for the law of Moses 
and the word of Jesus Christ; and considering how in so few 
years, in spite of the attacks made on us, to the loss of life 
or property, and with no great stores of teachers, the preach- 
ing of that word has found its way into every part of the 
world, so that Greek and barbarian, wise and unwise, adhere 
to the religion of Jesus, doubtless it is a work greater than 
any work of man." 



U. • (Page 369.) 

We would not leave the impression that nothing has been 
accomplished among pagan nations. The condition of things 
is not so depressing for the cause of truth as is sometimes 
represented. India is now accessible to the missionaries of 
every church. Christian schools and chapels are everywhere 
multiplying. Thousands of these Hindoos have been con- 
verted, and tens of thousands instructed in Christianity. The 
cruelties of heathenism are lessened. No government longer 
rigidly supports idolatry. All the islands in the Eastern 
Archipelago are accessible to missionaries. Ceylon, Mada- 
gascar, and other islands of note, where the voice of Chris- 
tianity had not been heard at the beginning of this centu- 
ry, possess to-day flourishing Christian congregations and 
schools, also noble and indomitable native Christian labor- 



444 



GOD-MAN. 



ers. The gospel is spreading among the teeming millions 
of China. The whole coast of Africa is girded with bands 
of light. The degraded Bushman, and the low Hottentot, 
and the warlike Kaffir, are kneeling at the cross of Christ* 
The whole Pacific world has witnessed the marvellous tri- 
umps of the gospel. Four hundred thousand ignorant and 
savage barbarians inhabiting the beautiful Pacific islands, 
where the name of Christ had not been heard at the begin- 
ning of this century, are to-day rejoicing in the spiritual 
blessings imparted by personal faith in the doctrines of Chris- 
tianity. At the beginning of this century, "to desert the 
Crescent for the Cross was death in all Mohammedan coun- 
tries. But to-day, all Mohammedan countries are listening 
to the voice of Christianity/' Such have been the direct con- 
quests of Christianity and of providence working in its favor 
during the past seventy years. Certainly, as Dr. John New- 
man (Catholic) says, " Christianity has had a grand history, 
and has effected great things, and is as vigorous in its age as 
in its youth." 

The steady historic progress of Christianity since its found- 
ing is such as to be far from disheartening. Sharon Turner 
gives a tabular statement somewhat conjectural, but it is cer- 
tainly no very improbable representation of the progressive 
increase of Christians in the world : — 



First century, . 
Second century, 
Third century, 
Fourth century, 
Fifth century, . 
Sixth century, . 
Seventh century, 
Eighth century, 
Nintli century, 
Tenth century, 
Eleventh century, 
Twelfth century, 
Thirteenth century. 



500,000 
2,000,000 
5,000,000 
10.000,000 
15,000,000 
20,000,000 
24,000.000 
30,000,000 
40,000,000 
50,000,000 
70,000,000 
80.000,000 
75,000,000 



APPENDIX. 445 

Fourteenth century, . . . 80,000,000 

Fifteenth century, .... 100,000.000 

Sixteenth century, . . . 125,000,000 

Seventeenth century, . . . 155,000,000 

Eighteenth century, . . . 200,000.000 

" Although this is a mere approximation," says Dr. Ha- 
ven, referring to this table of estimates, " and a very loose 
one, to the actual facts, yet it is interesting and instructive. 
With the exception of the thirteenth century (tenebrosum, 
as the late Dr. Miller called it), the progress of the truth has 
been ever onward. From every defeat it has arisen afresh, 
and — what has never been the case in any other system, reli- 
gious, social, or intellectual — has revived anew from the 
ashes of its own inward corruptions. In this nineteenth 
century, the Christian population of the world cannot be 
far from three hundred millions ; and its progress now is 
more rapid than in any period since the apostolic age." 



V. (Page 381.) 

Some of the fundamental distinctions which separate Chris- 
tianity from all other religions are well stated by C. E. Lut- 
hardt, of Leipsic. 

u No religion but the Christian has disclosed the innermost 
nature of God; none but this has laid bare, in its peculiar 
centre-point, the moral nature of man. Christianity alone 
has taught that God is holy love ; it alone has uncovered the 
full guilt of sin. No other religion knows of a grace of par- 
don and of a history of this grace, and has taught that herein 
is to be found the source of moral life. None condemns man 
so fully, and yet exalts him so high, show r s so much the depth 
of his misery, and at the same time the height of his calling, 
and opens the way to attain it. No other religion is, there- 
fore, in the proper sense, one of redemption and regenera- 
tion. 



446 GOD-MAN. 

"All others go no farther than the surface. They have ac- 
complished changes in individual parts and sides of the 
outward social life; but an actual renewal in the innermost 
foundations, the gospel alone has been able to effect. Hence 
all other religions have their day. And when the period of 
decline has dawned upon them, they are unable from their 
own strength to renew themselves. Buddhism undertook to 
breathe new life into the stiffened Brahminical heathenism, 
and now spiritual desolation and moral death rest more 
heavily and insurmountably down upon it than upon the 
idolatry of the Brahmins. The gospel, on the contrary, is an 
inexhaustible fountain. It constantly refreshes itself from 
itself, and so sends forth a renewing moral energy. The 
Christian church has had times of the deepest decline, times 
of the utmost degeneracy. But from every prostration it has 
risen again. In it lives an eternal youth." 

A popular American writer shows in the following felici- 
tous figure that Christianity, amid all the external progress 
of modern times, has remained essentially unchanged. 

" We confess to sore corruptions in certain quarters ; yet it 
is true that the Christian world, as such, in its creeds and 
actual belief, still maintains the whole gist of the original 
Christianity. There is not a main timber in the great ship, 
as it was launched, which is not in it to-day, and as sound 
as ever. On parts barnacles have been allowed to gather. 
At times men have hindered the sailing and the safety by 
various outlandish equipments. At times they have made 
our trireme fantastic with ill-judged paint, and even odious 
with unfit lading. 

" But. despite this, it is the same ship, as to those great 
skeleton beams whose heart of oak holds all together, that 
once ploughed the blue waves of Galilee and the ^Egean, 
with the fishermen apostles for crew and undoubted Jesus for 
Master." 



THE WRITINGS OW 

REV. L. T. TOWNSEND, D.D. 

PUBLISHED BY 

LEE & SHEPARD, BOSTON. 



TRUE and FRETEN&EJD CHRISTIANITY. 

The Controversy between True and Pretended Chris- 
tianity : An Essay delivered before the Massachusetts 
Methodist Convention, held in Boston, Oct. 15, 1868. 
i6mo. Cloth, 50 cts. ; paper, 25 cts. (1868.) 

A searching" analysis of some insidious snares, which specious errors, 

in the hands of popular men, are pleasantly spreading for unwary feet, 

especially in New England. — Christian Instructor. 

CREDO. i2mo Cloth. $1.50. (1869.) 

Discusses theology from a strictly evangelical stand-point. — Observer, 
Neio York. 

We think there is a necessity for such books as this. — Presbyterian, 
Philadelphia. 

Written in a crisp, vivacious, transparent style. — Liberal Christian. 

A clear thinker and close reasoner. — Congregational Quarterly. 

Contains a vast deal of truth. — Monthly Religious Magazine. 

We commend this book to every doubting, debating mind. — Zion's 
Herald, Boston. 

Cannot fail to interest the thinking public. — Advertiser, Detroit. 

Will create no less sensation than " Ecce Homo." — Democrat, Roch- 
ester. 

A vigorous writer and deep thinker. — Journal, Albany. 

Clear, earnest, and forcible. — Spy, Worcester. 

Will be read with close attention by Christians generally. — Post, Pitts- 
burgh. 

The author shows great powers of argument, based on a thorough 
knowledge of his subject. — New York Express. 

Will interest any one who has thought at all on these subjects. — West- 
ern Monthly. 

Theological libraries ought to have this Credo. — Christian Advocate, 
Pittsburgh. 

Will be welcomed by orthodox Christians of every denomination. — 
N. A. $ U. S. Gazette, Philadelphia. 

Reviews nearly every department of modern scientific discovery. — 
Republican, Lyons, New York. 

An able, earnest protest against the iudifference and scepticism of the 
day. — Herald, Utica. 



Rev. L. T. Tow7isend' > s Writings. 



THE SWORD AND GARMENT; or, Ministerial 
Culture. i2mo. Cloth. $1.50. (1871.) 

The style of the book is unusually clear, terse, and attractive. He who 
begins to rend will hardly be persuaded to stop before he reaches the end. 
This is saying- much, but we couid not justly say less. We read through 
to the last line, and if there is any book of the year that we wish a hearty 
" God speed " it is this one. — Christian Era. 

This is a book for preachers ; and although written with special reference 
to the wants of the Methodist ministry, abounds in suggestions and coun- 
sels which all young ministers will find valuable. — Christian Standard, 
Cincinnati, Ohio. 

No book of its character will be read more extensively, or with deeper 
interest, than this. — Christian Advocate, Auburn, N. Y. 

We commend this lively and very entertaining and profitable volume 
particularly to our clerical readers. — Christian Advocate, N. Y. City. 

It is an exceedingly eloquent and earnest plea for intellectual culture 
among clergymen. The book ought to be in every clergyman's hands. It 
will not fail to stimulate and strengthen. — Watchman and Reflector. 

The book is one that ought to be generally read, for it incites to thought, 
because it is full of thought. — Traveller. 

We think it a very good and serviceable book to place in the hands of 
every young man who thinks he is divinely called to ent r the ministry, 
and who wishes to be successful in its exercise. — Episcopalian, Phila- 
delphia and New York. 

Tt is on ministerial education, and we know not where so many good 
things on the subject may be found within so small a compass. — Religious 
Magazine, Boston. 

We say to all who are, or intend to become, " fishers of men," read this 
book. — Pulpit and Pew, New York City. 

We wish that Professor Townsend's glowing exhortations and cogent 
arguments could be brought to bear upon every young minister. — Reli- 
gious Herald, Hartford, Conn. 

The book is bright with thought, keen, and original. — Palladium, 
Worcester, Mass. 

Had we a young friend purposing to enter the profession, we think of 
no book we should be more disposed to present him. If some one, hav- 
ing more money than he knows how to dispose of, would give a copy to 
every theological student in the country, he would do a good work. — The 
Golden Age. 

Dr. Townsend's several works on religious topics have justly acquired 
for him a very high reputation as an earnest and vigorous evangelical 
writer. The several publications in question are of quite recent date, 
and we cannot help thinking that this latest one is of the most prac- 
tical value. — Courier, Boston. 

It is stimulating and quickening to read the treatise. — Congregation- 
alist. 

It is bright and vigorous without being offensive, and handles questions 
of present and pressing interest with such spirit and force as will enter- 
tain those who are unconvinced by the writer's arguments. — The Literary 
World. 

We are fully persuaded that every theological student will study better, 
and that every minister will preach and discharge the duties of the pas- 
torate better, after the perusal of these pages.— Presbyterian Banner, 
Pittsburgh. 

The book abounds in sharp points, in suggestive hints, in apt quota- 
tion, in truth forcibly put. — Standard, Chicago, 111. 



6 1 -10} 



